Another Line
by CAD3NCE
Summary: Three years ago, Hikari drew three coloured lines on a computer screen: our world, the Digital World and the Dark Ocean. But Takeru added more. After defeating Malomyotismon life returned to normal, no one knew they'd have to survive one more line.
1. PROLOGUE

_**PROLOGUE**_

"_It's like this." Hikari said, taking the computer mouse and dragging a red line across the screen. "Imagine this is the digital world and this line is the real world." She made a yellow line underneath, soon joined by a blue one. "The dark ocean is another world too."_

"_That's not all," Takeru interrupted, taking the mouse from Hikari, brushing her hand with his as she slowly pulled away. "I'd be willing to bet there's a bunch of other worlds out there as well." He drew more lines of other colours and the five digidestined looked at the screen, some in understanding, others in curiosity. "But look what happens if the balance is destroyed."_

_Daisuke, Hikari, Iori and Miyako all watched as the computer began to distort the lines that Takeru and Hikari had created, each line spiralling into the next. Daisuke looked at Hikari's sullen face, "It looks like it's going down the drain!" He remarked, trying in vain to get a smile to creep onto the girls lips._

"_Black." Hikari said eerily. _

_Daisuke looked up at the screen that so entranced the petite brunette and sure enough, where there had earlier been, like Miyako had declared, a rainbow, was now a black screen. _

"_And in the end," Gatomon spoke up, bringing the attention of the five children away from the screen to Hikari's cat-like companion. "Every world might be covered in darkness."_

xxx

Water stretched out for miles. It was not dark and no lighthouse circled a shadowy light through the grey mist; and there was no trace of it ever being so. It was quite the opposite in fact, the sun shone brightly, reflecting off the turquoise waves that stretched for as far as one could see. The sand that edged the water was white-gold and closer to walking on silk sheets than tiny rocks. There were no buildings to block the brilliant sapphire sky, no litter to taint the grassland and even cars rushing through the streets were unheard of. In their place were villages, people dawdling down the cobblestone streets; their laughter and the sound of horse hooves clacking could be heard everywhere. Carriages pulled by the most glorious looking stallions led through the streets up to a castle, brilliant white with pillars and arches; one reminiscent of the most magnificent fairy tales. The windows, covered in brilliant stained glass looked out at the water where ships dotted the ocean.

The world seemed to elude any force of time. No one had heard of Europe or America, no history books or school lesson you or I have known would speak of the green fields that haloed the oceans that drifted on forever. The people called their land Orenda, which encompassed the miles of ocean and every piece of land surrounding it. They were not religious but they believed in The Six Powers, a legend that could be told by anyone on the streets like a nursery rhyme.

The Six Powers were the guardians of Orenda, each protecting an area of their land marked by an ancient statue believed to be what stapled that area of their land to the universe. As not everyone was presented with the opportunity to see every statue, six grand tapestries were woven to hang in the main hall of the castle. Each huge tapestry corresponded to a statue, each with great meaning to every citizen of Orenda.

The first tapestry, **Earth**, pictured the statue that sat on the edge of the largest Orendian forest. If one was to travel there, they would find that the statue looked out at the northern-most part of the great ocean where the second statue stood tall on a small island shown in the **Water** tapestry. Beside that was a woven interpretation of the **Ice** statue, sitting on a snow-capped peak in the mountains, looking down to the Orendian plains where the **Wind** statue was encircled by fields of grain. The fifth tapestry showed the center square of the workers village, where the statue stood in a modest fountain. **Town** was believed to bring inspiration and prosperity to the tradesmen, and being the least remote statue, was often seen amongst the villagers. The final monument, sitting just below the tapestry that corresponded with it, was **Sun**. The largest tapestry was woven with spun gold and reflected the sunlight from the windows to all corners of the room.

Each statue was built of marble and each held a complementary jewel that was inlaid into the different designs. The most well-known difference was between **Sun** and the other statues. Aside from being built inside the castle and it's noticeably bigger stature, the pedestal was ornamented with carved symbols, ornamented with many smaller jewels of varying colors. The colours corresponded to **Sun** and the other five statues. Although people assumed the green jewels meant **Earth **and orange **Sun, **no one could decipher the language or meaning of any symbol. Different Orendian towns had separate variations of The Six Powers legend, some had conflicting stories of who built them, the meaning of the symbols or any supernatural ties the statues held to the tapestries. All stories agreed, however, that if even one link was broken or one Power destroyed, all of Orenda would fall into an indissoluble darkness.

It was not until the heirless king passed, that the six symbols on the **Sun** statue began to glow. The greatest scholars, the town elders and even school teachers familiar with the varying town legends were called in and nothing was concluded. It was not reflecting light or a deception of their eyes. The light emanating from the six symbols was deemed harmless, until coincidences became too strong.

The forests were deteriorating by what experts declared "beasts", however none were ever spotted. The tides were ebbing dangerously and then flooding unprepared villages. The mountains of ice and snow were beginning to melt, fields were being assailed by tornadoes, destroying crops and even in towns the people were less friendly and stores began to shut down. The sun would burn blazing hot one say, and then not come up the next. All scholars and experts could determine was it was all too big of a coincidence.

The disasters were attributed to the glowing symbols, but no matter if that were true or not, no one could decipher the ancient symbols. Books were read a hundred times over, no one learning more than war heroes that painted the symbols in their breastplates or that children born in the vicinity of a certain statue were blessed with an affinity to the land that Power guarded. But no one could find their meanings. No one could find who designed them and no one knew that the symbols were in fact crests- crests that belonged to six unknowing individuals who held these designs, branded on their hearts and souls. Although they knew not of the Orendian elements they protected or the turmoil they were causing, they knew the crests of Sincerity, Reliability, Friendship, Love, Knowledge, and Courage. And although they knew more than any Orendian expert could ever fathom with a lifetime of research, the six owners of the crests lived out of reach, not just miles, but worlds away.

xxx


	2. Are You Happy?

Thank you so much for the kind reviews, this is my first fanfiction so it means a lot! I actually had a dream about this idea, so that's where I got my inspiration but it's been sitting in my notebook as a page of potential plotlines, so I'm finally putting it together. I really appreciate comments and reviews and critiques, they always brighten my day. I'll try to be persistent with updating, until writers block comes and holds me captive. Thanks again for reading =)

I don't own Digimon. If I did, there would have been a season 2.5 somewhere down the line.

Jyou: 19

Yamato, Taichi, Sora: 18

Mimi, Koushiro: 17

Miyako, Ken: 16

Takeru, Daisuke, Hikari: 15

Iori: 13

xxx

_**CHAPTER ONE**_

_One_

Stupid bi-weekly sessions

_Two_

Stupid magazine article.

_Three_

Stupid masquerade ball.

_Four_

"This is stupid!"

xxx

Dr. Arisa Hisami looked up from her brand new chestnut desk at the boy who had masses of similar coloured hair. Yagami Taichi had been coming to these sessions for just over a month, with little success. It was obvious he wanted to be here even less than she did, the years of schooling and awards and diplomas seemed to over-dress the linoleum floored room she had been imprisoned to as the school psychologist. But she was being paid and he was not.

"What's stupid, Taichi?"

The boy, eighteen, athletic and more impatient than Dr. Hisami's landlady, turned his head away defiantly. "How I'm still here." She had been trying to get him to count to ten in his head to calm his mind and hopefully get him to talk to her but this method had not proved to be very effective.

With a trained voice, Dr. Hisami reiterated the same phrase she had been told eleven sessions ago. "Every Tuesday and Thursday, three o'clock to four o'clock. That's what we agreed on with Mr. Joru and your parents." The scene was still fresh in her mind, the principal red-cheeked and his deeply lined face looking more like a half-deflated balloon than anything and the Yagami's: both slightly embarrassed and irritated with the situation. The situation that trapped Dr. Hisami with the personification of why she was single and feared ever having kids.

"Seriously, why are we still here?" Taichi raised his voice and Dr. Hisami rubbed her temple. She hoped the walls were somewhat soundproof. "I just punched the kid 'cause he pissed me off. There's no deeper meaning or anything for you to psychoanalyze with your shrink methods, other than what you already know, and no reason to waste anymore of your time or my time or anyone's time!"

"He was sent to the hospital, Taichi."

"Well, it's his fault he has sucky balance."

_Sucky balance?_ Dr. Hisami disguised her scoff as a sneeze and waited to see if Taichi had more to say. It didn't appear so.

The first week all she had been able to get out of him was that a kid who Taichi had up until then referred to as 'the stupid guitar freak' _'pissed'_ him off. Her first assumption was that it was Ishida Yamato, but upon asking Joru who it was, her theory was disproved. It was a student in Taichi's year, Paul Udo, so this proved her first two weeks to be unsuccessful. Later, she got Taichi to explain who Paul was, a new student. This was followed in the next session that Udo and Ishida had become fast friends and when The Teenage Wolves, the band that Ishida played in, lost their guitar player and Udo stepped in. Information any fourteen-year-old girl Dr. Hisami asked in the school hallway could have provided. Another week: bust.

Weeks three and four involved him sitting in the chair and ignoring her, occasionally answering her questions with grunts of various pitch and length. But the Thursday last week, he was having an especially bad day. Besides being fifteen minutes late and looking like he hadn't slept, drinking what smelled like really strong coffee, he spoke.

"Yamato is freaking stupid." He had said, using his favourite word. "He doesn't see it. Like he's either severely retarded or just blind!"

A million thoughts had filled her mind at that moment. Was this jealousy of Udo?

After a long sip of pungent-smelling coffee, Taichi began again, this time slower and a dark anger coating his every word. "He treats her like she's nothing."

"Yamato?" Hisami asked.

Taichi looked up, raising an eyebrow, telling her that she had just said something incredibly stupid for someone with a PhD. "Udo. He treats Sora like crap."

"Sora?"

"Takenouchi. Yamato's woman." Taichi replied with hints of a biting mockery. "I'm not expecting him to treat her like Matt does or anything, but-" He cut himself off, studying the lady's engrossed expression. "Sometimes he'll drop stuff around her just so she'll pick it up… you know, bend down and pick it up…" He averted his eyesight completely. "And he calls her Ginger. Pisses me off. But she puts up with it because of Yamato. Then Kari,"

"Kari?"

"Hikari. My sister."

"Right."

"Well she was working with them for some photography stuff and after Yamato and the other two guys left he…"

"Tried to kiss her?"

Hisami took Taichi's silence as a yes. "She's only fifteen! And he bruised her wrist and she started wearing all these bracelets and my mom asked her if she was slitting her wrists and I laughed cause that's impossible since it's Hikari and she's like the poster child for happiness… but she told me and so the next day when I saw him I was just gonna tell Udo to back off and then he started saying stuff about Hikari and… so I just showed him what he deserved. He fell backwards over the median and landed on the sidewalk on his arm, idiot broke it, so now he can't play guitar and Yamato's pissed, Sora's pissed that Yamato's pissed, Hikari's pissed that I talked to him, and I'm pissed cause I've just told you all this, which by the way I use the student-shrink confidentiality clause, cause I wasn't supposed to say anything but now here we are, can I go?"

At the time, the shock that Taichi had said more than grunts had shocked Dr. Hisami so much that she couldn't do anything but nod. But since then, a week ago, she hadn't gotten much else out of him and hadn't really seen the need to continue these sessions. If it had been other circumstances it would just be two students horsing around but because Udo had "sucky balance" Taichi was reprimanded beyond the norm.

Hisami looked at the clock and back at the boy. He was resting on the blue plastic classroom chair with only the two back legs touching the floor. She winced, "Are you happy, Taichi?" She hadn't intended to ask the question, and she should have been able to hold it back but it slipped.

"Hmm?" Taichi rested all four chair legs back on the ground. Eyes averted, he began playing with one of the buttons on his school blazer. His sullen, bored expression changed to a blank one, "Yep."

What kind of question was that? He was an eighteen year old boy. Girls, cars and sports made him ecstatic. He'd fall into a deep depression if there was no meat in the cafeteria.

"Okay, good. You can go."

"Kay, see ya." He muttered, already out the door.

Arisa Hisami sighed and lay her head on her desk, her hair several shades darker than the wood it spread across. Taking off her glasses she massaged her eyes, working with teenagers at this high school was surely going to end her career.

xxx

"_Are you happy?" _Taichi repeated in a poor high pitched imitation of Dr. Hisami. He was not happy that he still had to go to that room, even after last week he told her what she and the Principal wanted to know. Udo was a creep and Taichi had met more than his fair share of creeps. Although not all of them had been human, they were creeps nonetheless. Imagining Paul Udo as Udomon or in the ridiculous Emperor get-up Ken had sported three years ago brought a small bout of laughter out of Taichi.

"What's so funny, Tai?"

He turned around and his surprise was turned into irritation at the sight of Daisuke, taller and less lanky but still sporting the goggles Taichi had given him three years ago.

"Eh, nothing. What are you doing still here?"

Daisuke laughed and looked at Taichi expectantly but his eyes widened when his expression received nothing but a shrug. "Soccer? You know that sport we play?"

Taichi swore, noticing the bag swung over the younger boys shoulder. Daisuke, the second youngest to ever make the senior soccer team, after himself of course, took the whole thing much too seriously.

"I hope you get to be captain this year. You are a born leader after all."

Taichi studied Daisuke, who had recently claimed he wanted to be called a more Americanized _Davis_, Hikari said it was because the girl he liked couldn't say Daisuke properly, his earnest face looking up at the older boy.

"Thanks."

_Leader_. How the hell did that start? He was eleven and they were lost in the digital world. But he wasn't the oldest, that was Jyou. He wasn't even the second oldest, that was Yamato. The smartest was Koushiro and Sora one who actually cared if everyone made it out alive. Taichi often wondered what would have happened if someone else had stepped into the leader shoes, who would he have been? Koushiro was the smart one, Yamato the angsty one, Jyou was paranoid and Mimi was the princess. Sora was the level-headed, maternal one and Takeru was the cute cry-baby. Everything else was taken. He was Taichi, the impulsive, narrow-minded one who somehow became leader.


	3. What Jyou Did

Here's another update :) I am really happy that people are interested with where this story is going and I hope that continues as it goes along. I have most of the story mapped out so updates shouldn't be more than a week apart at most :) My first fanfiction writing experience has been so far so good, and I have everyone reading this to thank for that :) This is the longest chapter out of the ones I've written, and I lost it all due to a silly computer mistake, so re-writing it was frustrating but I'm glad how it turned out because I'm fascinated by the friendship these two have. Enjoy!

_**CHAPTER TWO**_

"Where are we going, Mimi?" Jyou looked beside him at the girl with her hands on the steering wheel. It didn't seem to bother her that she was twenty minutes late picking him up and now they had long since veered off any of the roads he had previously deemed acceptable for her to drive on. Every minute that passed was another minute Jyou wished he could go back in time and not agree to help Mimi get her Japanese drivers license.

"It's a surprise!"

Great. Mimi was well aware that Jyou hated surprises but this fact seemed to frequently slip her mind. He shifted his weight slightly and tilted his head to watch Mimi's driving habits, although her hands were not gripping the wheel as tightly as he would have liked and her eyes were not scanning the road as intently as they should be, they hadn't crashed or hit anything as of yet so he would let these things slide. For now.

Mimi was humming a tune Jyou couldn't place, though that was understandable as his taste of music was something Mimi often claimed to be worse than her father's. Jyou winced as Mimi lifted one of her hands off the wheel to tuck a stray hair behind her ear; then to Jyou's mortification she took her other hand off and adjusted her hair-clip.

Jyou let out a yelp that could have been mistaken for a scared puppy. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING! PUT YOUR HANDS BACK ON THE WHEEL NOW! OH MY GOD, WE'RE GOING TO DIE!" He used one of his hands to grasp the edge of Mimi's cherry-red convertible and the other to reach for the wheel.

"Calm down, Jyou." Mimi giggled in a tone that was far more nonchalant than it should have been for, as Jyou thought, someone who had nearly killed them both and crashed a car that could have been sold for a large percentage of college tuition.

With a roll of his eyes Jyou muttered, "Calm down, she says." still trying to catch his breath, the young man loosened his white-knuckled grip on the side of the car to push his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, but not his hand did not move from the dashboard, ready to grab the wheel at any given moment.

Her hair, which she had just illegally adjusted, was put into an elaborate twist and fastened with a stained-glass butterfly clip that matched the soft blush color that highlighted her brown hair. It was more practical than the whole head of bubble-gum pink hair streaked with scarlet she sported a couple years ago, but Jyou knew that telling her how impractical pink hair was, would never persuade her to change her unruly ways and stay with her natural light brown.

Jyou's dashboard hand twitched as he saw Mimi's grip, once again, leave the wheel as she began rooting through a basket placed in between her seat and his, frustration causing her daintily shaped eyebrows to crease.

"Put your hand back on the wheel, Mimi." Jyou instructed patiently, not even noticing his tightening grip on the side of the car. "What are you looking for? I'll get it." He looked in the hot-pink basket where he immediately hoped she didn't ask for a lip-gloss. There was no way he could find one specific colour in that mess of at least thirty different shades of pink.

Mimi returned her hand to the wheel, smiling gratefully. "My sunglasses."

Jyou looked up at her, with six tubes of lip gloss in his hand, and his jaw dropped. "Your what?"

"Sunglasses!" She repeated.

Jyou continued to stare at Mimi, dumbfounded. "I-It's November!"

"But we're going to the beach!" Mimi exclaimed, ruining the surprise she had spoken of earlier.

"It's November." Jyou repeated, waiting for Mimi to start giggling and announce that she was joking, but such relief didn't come.

Mimi replied, in her excited voice, "I've always wanted to see how big the beach was just... with myself and today is the perfect chance because I'm almost positive there will be no crowds!"

Resisting the urge to inform the girl that this fact was true because everyone else in the country knew what month it was and no one in their right mind was going to go anywhere near the ocean where wind, cold and general unpleasantries that came with the eleventh month were magnified tenfold.

"Glasses, Jyou." Mimi reminded him, and with a habitual absentness, Jyou pushed up his glasses that were slipping down his nose. "I meant, sunglasses. Oh, don't worry, I'll get them." Mimi leaned over while still keeping a fleeting eye on the road, but Jyou stopped her.

"No, you won't." He pushed Mimi back upright in her seat. With a dramatic sigh he began digging through the mass of lip-glosses and make-up brushes and who knows what else until he pulled out a magazine, one he had seen continually over the past three days.

Jyou had yet to actually read it, he had heard a mouthful about it from Taichi who had referred to it as _stupid _multiple times. Normally Jyou would blame this on jealousy, he was still convinced that Taichi wanted Sora back, but even he had to admit, the whole portrayal of Matt in the magazine was slightly ridiculous. "Prince Charming?" Jyou asked, not fully intending it to be out loud, but once he had said it, he wondered what Mimi's opinion was.

Mimi was uncharacteristically silent. Jyou hoped this silence was her not hearing him and not a reflection of her opinion on the cynicism in his voice. "Mimi?"

"Well, he kind of is." Mimi said softly. "Like the way he is with Sora, it's just so… romantic."

Jyou scoffed. Easily one of his least favourite things of having his group of friends be in mixed company was listening to the girls in said mixed company talk about the boys. He put the magazine down and winced at the sight of a guitar-wielding Yamato staring up at him, the arm of his precious bass guitar leading up towards the _Prince Charming_ headline almost mocking Jyou with his neatly parted hair, pleated beige slacks and his fleece sweatshirt.

Wanting desperately to avert any potential conversation to go any deeper into the topic of Yamato and Sora's romance, Jyou was overwhelmingly relieved when he spotted a pair of brown-tinted sunglasses.

"Oh, thank you Jyou!" Mimi exclaimed, the former quietness of her voice leaving immediately as she reached, dangerously quick, for the glasses in Jyou's hand.

"I'll give them to you when we are pulled over or stopped or parked or-"

"Okay." Mimi stopped him, not losing the cheerful note in her voice.

Jyou looked at the sunglasses and after silently pondering for several moments, he finally asked Mimi: "How come you have these, that are the same size, if not bigger than my old glasses? You-"

"They weren't glasses, Jyou. They were more like… binoculars!" Mimi laughed and Jyou wished she didn't close her eyes when she did so.

"They were practically the same as these except with my bifocal lens and they weren't tinted brown!"

Mimi scoffed her I-can't-believe-you scoff. "These are fashionable! Sunglasses are supposed to be big and make a statement, glasses are supposed to be small and sophisticated, like the ones you have now!"

Never had he, and probably never would he, understand Mimi's fashion logic. Like the lime green shirt she was wearing now with the single giant ruffle going down from the neckline to hemline of the shirt was "adorable" but when Jyou had pointed out a blouse with a similar ruffle around the neck Mimi had stared at him like he had suggested they get their spleens removed. Or when she had started wearing a dress with little pink and blue flowers all over it, Jyou had pointed out a cardigan with larger flowers stitched into it. Mimi had suggested he buy it for his great aunt. But ever since his "binoculars" years, they had been friends. Everyone, even themselves, knew it was the weirdest friendship ever but somehow she put up with his incessant cynicism and he knew exactly how she often said things, like her binoculars comment, that could be interpreted as condescending, but she never meant it that way. He was painfully sarcastic, paranoid and distrusting and Mimi was blindly optimistic, naïve and impractical. But he would accompany her to the mall and give his (often ignored) opinion on her potential purchases and she would go with him to the library and quiz him on his (often mispronounced) biology vocabulary. They were just there for each other, with some sort of mutual understanding.

Although Jyou wasn't surprised when Mimi asked him to help her get her Japanese drivers license, as she had practiced (illegally, Jyou was disgusted to hear) in New York, but as she still held a Japanese citizenship, he obliged, reluctantly. She moved back to Japan from America to live with her aunt, who her father send an obscene amount of money to (ergo the red convertible for a seventeen-year-old girl who hasn't even gotten her driver's license) in return for letting Mimi stay there until she turned eighteen. It seemed impracticality was genetic.

"We're here!" Mimi chimed. She parked, (crookedly) in the designated white lines and turned to Jyou, holding her hand out expectantly.

Jyou stared at her open palm for a moment before snapping to the realization; she was waiting for her sunglasses. He placed them in her hand and with a small thank-you she slipped them on, shielding her brown eyes from the absent sun.

They stepped out of the car onto the raised tarmac and Jyou was prepared to offer his sweatshirt to the bare armed girl. As he positioned himself a safe distance from anything he could potentially bang his elbow into, Jyou remembered his reason for putting it on that afternoon was an embarrassingly large and noticeable stain from his lunch. With his folded arms over the stain, as if he was paranoid that Mimi could see through the gray fleece to the soup stain, Jyou followed Mimi down the slope leading to the beach. Her tread was uneven, she was practically skipping and the angle of the slope combined with the loose gravel made Jyou uneasy. But he had been around Mimi long enough to know if one of them was going to fall, it would be him. And thanks to a conveniently placed tree-root coming out of the slope, Jyou didn't fall. Slipped, tripped and stumbled, yes; but fall flat on his face in a humiliating fashion: averted.

Mimi was right, there were no crowds. Aside from an irritated looking bird and a couple loose pop cans going in and out with the surf, they were alone on the large stretch of beach. As the small girl danced along the coastline, running and twirling and kicking up sand, Jyou couldn't help but laugh. The granules of rock were piling into the folds of her jeans and filling her black shoes. Ballet flats she called them, although Jyou was positive Mimi had never taken any sort of dance classes. But she danced: not in any sort of manner that would lead Jyou to believe she could potentially enter a dance class but flailing and kicking and spinning. There was no rhythm or pattern other than the constant upheaval of sand flying at his clean beige slacks as he trailed a safe distance behind her. But he expected nothing less from the girl who was crazy and unpredictable and difficult. He expected nothing less from Mimi.

After dancing seemed to lose its charm, Mimi settled down on a pile of dry sand, just far away enough that as he sat down beside her, Jyou could no longer see the car parked above the small cliff.

Mimi was grinning as she hummed the same unnamed tune. Jyou didn't like the feeling of sand getting into his sneakers, but he knew any complaints would fall on deaf ears. She was too happy to care about his complaints, sand or the gray November sky above them.

She took off one of her ballet shoes and dumped the sand out onto a little pile she made beside her leg. The sand of the other shoe was added and Mimi dug her toes into the depths ahead of her. She stretched out her arms and smiled, and with that, Jyou was content.

One thing Jyou promised himself he would never do was stop Mimi from being happy. Jyou didn't feel any sort of, romantic connection to her, it was practically his day job. He was the reliable one, after all. And if Mimi, or any of his friends for that matter, ever needed anyone, Jyou wanted to be the one they came to. But his other friends, they were independent. They didn't go to Jyou, which he altogether didn't mind, as he was usually studying; but when it came to Mimi, he only trusted himself, no matter if it was news of some guy that Jyou knew to be a total jerk, a purchase that was unbelievably expensive, or dancing on the beach in November. Sure, he would voice his arsenal of reasons, always with full knowledge that Mimi would never listen to any. So, he would sit up on the phone on the night before a huge exam listening to her bawl about how the scumbag treated her badly, he'd lend her money that he never expected to get back to buy the purse or skirt or shoes that she would list off the hundred and one other articles of clothing or accessories it would match _perfectly_ and he would spend an hour, as he predicted he would tonight, trying to get sand out of his shoes and his pants and places he wouldn't even know how sand got into.

He had five years of ridiculous phone bills from the New York phone calls and recollections of spending too much time at the mall before and after that. He had years of memories of seeing her happy, just like today, but Jyou had seen her cry too many times. After the numerous failed relationships, the fights with the guys she shared those relationships with, and after movies no self-respecting man should ever have to watch. But the worst he had ever seen her was at the hands of his own friends.

Jyou was the first person who knew she was coming back, and with help from Hikari he orchestrated a Welcome Home party for her. Two weeks ago, after Jyou had picked her up from the airport and had to carry every piece of her overweight matching luggage up the unending staircases of her aunts apartment, Jyou brought her to the Yagami's home. Everyone was waiting and Jyou, with his newly bruised legs, didn't even get a chance to sit down, because Mimi kept asking him to come join conversations. The whole gang was there besides Miyako who was spending the month with her bride-to-be sister and Iori who is spending the year doing a student exchange in Germany. Yes, Germany. Of course Mimi was thrilled, people threw a party for her, she was the center of attention and Hikari had even gotten her a crown. Of course she was happy, it was Mimi.

But then as soon as everyone got into routine, things started changing. Sora got a job at a small dress shop and spent every free moment with Yamato who was always practicing or performing (or being photographed for cheesy magazine spreads, Jyou added into his train of thought with a silent jeer). Hikari was welcomed into the yearbook club, and she spent most of her time taking pictures of any school event that she could get a hold of and Takeru was vigilantly writing, entering contest after contest and trying to get into some writing program. Taichi was noticeably distancing himself over the past few weeks and as much as Daisuke and Ken tried to make Mimi feel welcome, the two younger boys could never handle more than fifteen minutes of Mimi at a time. And then Koushiro, although he was in the same class as Mimi, avoided her like she had some sort of infectious disease. A computer virus, Jyou often joked to himself.

Mimi took loneliness badly. It was like her youth was being slowly torn from her body. Jyou had tried checking up on her but her aunt claimed that Mimi had come down with the flu. So last Thursday Jyou had waited until Mimi's aunt left for work to go up and knock on the apartment door. Mimi had answered, in her pajamas and ridiculous panda-bear slippers, hair uncombed and not a trace of make-up on her face, but clearly not sick. And she knew she couldn't fake being sick to the aspiring doctors face, so she let him in.

Jyou expected her to begin bawling as she normally did. He expected her to start calling people ridiculous names with a series of profanities interjected wherever they fell, he even expected her to start hitting him for not leaving her alone. But she didn't yell. She didn't swear. She didn't inflict any injuries besides the ones her suitcases had done so a week earlier. She led him to the couch, offered him a glass of water and put on a DVD of some second season episodes of a show she had watched religiously in America. Jyou didn't remember what it was called, how many episodes they watched or even recall one plot-line, because he spent the whole time worrying about Mimi. He hadn't seen her without make-up since she turned thirteen and her hair was always at least brushed. Jyou didn't do well with feelings and aside from Mimi's normal outbursts of emotion, he had no idea to do.

"Do you want to go to the mall?" He had asked.

At first she had looked at him like he was crazy. But after an elongated moment she smiled. "Yeah." She had said before turning off the television and heading to her room to get changed.

That's what he did. He listened to her cry. He watched movies dripping with estrogen and he went to the mall, only to invest in her latest purchases. He dealt with her crazy plans and surprises and pink hair. Because she didn't deserve to be lonely.

Jyou felt a prick of water on his neck, was that the start of a cold sweat? He looked over at Mimi who was covering her feet with sand and wiggling her newly polished toes to break any sort of fortress she built. Another drop of water fell on his nose. Jyou looked out at the vast body of water, even though it was cool and the gray sky looked foreboding, there didn't seem to be enough wind to splash beads of seawater all the way to wear he was sitting. Another drop fell on his hand and Jyou looked to the ashen sky. So it was not sweat nor was it the ocean, Jyou was about to reach his conclusion when Mimi interrupted his thought process.

"It's raining!"

The words that left Mimi's mouth seemed to be the keys to the floodgates. The water began to pour, not so much in drops as a mob standing thousands of feet in the air with industrial sized hoses, spraying their heads. There were many things Jyou assumed Mimi would want to cover from the rain. Her complicated looking hair twist which she surely spent ridiculous amounts of time perfecting, her makeup which she spent unnecessary effort to make look effortless, and her lime green t-shirt, which he knew was new and obscenely expensive. As Jyou thought of these things, jogging paces behind Mimi who sprinted, kicking up wet sand and as she turned the corner to the hill, her eloquent hair-twist came undone. Mimi didn't notice as her milk-chocolate and cotton candy hair tumbled around her shoulders. Jyou stopped to pick up the stained glass butterfly clip that landed upright in one of Mimi's accentuated running footprints, the glass in one wing shattered. Jyou looked up to see Mimi on the elevated parking lot; no, it wasn't her now tousled hair or her drenched shirt, it was the convertible. Jyou stuck the butterfly and the remnants of its wing in his pocket. "Hurry, Jyou!" Mimi called as she held a tiny hand above her head, which did nothing to shield her already soaked hair from the downpour.

"Let's put the roof up." Jyou suggested, and at Mimi's shamefaced giggle, he sighed. "What happened?"

"Well, I got this guy to take it out, I need to get as much use out of it without the roof before winter comes!"

Jyou sighed, ready to scold her like some strict babysitter, ready to tell her that winter started in less than two weeks, and that she was being ridiculous. But at the sight of Mimi pulling a Kleenex and wiping down the steering wheel, not noticing the futility, he stopped himself. How could someone remove the roof of their car in November? Someone crazy and impractical and hopelessly optimistic.

But that was Mimi.


	4. Hikari's Number 23

So here's chapter three! I know that the chapters so far don't seem to connect to the prologue, but I promise you that everything will start coming together as it goes on. I think that part of the fun of stories are trying to pick up the things that will be relevant as it progresses, so while the character-based chapters may seem like filler, they are in fact quite important. Thanks again for reading and comments are appreciated as always.

_**CHAPTER THREE**_

Hikari twirled her bulky watch around her wrist anxiously as she waited for the bar on the computer screen to fill. The watch was one that she had gotten for her birthday a few years ago, digital and so awkward looking that it impossible to miss. There was a button that caused the screen to glow pink which was convenient when she needed to see the time in the dark, which almost made up for it being obscenely ridiculous. And, tacky though it was, it was better than Takeru's old basketball sweatband than she found under her bed and had been wearing for the past week. Her first idea was a wrist full of thin bracelets but her mother started to think Hikari had started slitting her wrists. How long does it take for a bruise to go away? Not that it helped that she was the girl that would bruise after losing a thumb war, but a month? Hikari pulled at her watch and looked, it was nowhere near as dark as it had been but there it was, like a band of jaundice around her wrist.

"Oh, it's loaded?"

Hikari jumped out of her seat and looked up at the redheaded Koushiro leaning over her shoulder to see the computer screen. "Didn't mean to startle you, Kari."

"It's okay, you didn't." Hikari lied as she turned back towards the computer screen, which had, in fact, finally loaded all the pictures she had taken of _The Teenage Wolves_ a few weeks earlier, ironically the event that led to the bruise on her wrist. Koushiro had been working on improving the "juvenile mockery" of a website that the drummer's girlfriend had put together and as Hikari had been taking pictures of them for the annual, Koushiro had called her for material.

"That's a good one of Paul." Koushiro mused as he dragged a file onto the desktop.

Hikari didn't even look. It was impossible to get a good picture of someone like Paul. "Why are you even fixing their website, Izzy?" she asked, using the nickname that played on Koushiro's surname.

"A favour I owe to Yamato." He answered absently, still dragging the occasional file off Hikari's memory card. "Plus, it truly is horrible."

Hikari studied the older boy's face from the angle she was sitting. Although it seemed that he wasn't really listening to her, Hikari knew from years of experience that he would always use the computer as an excuse to evade conversation.

"What kind of favour?" Hikari pushed, knowing that he had tried to downplay the first statement that he had said.

The blush that filled Koushiro's face matched his brick coloured hair. "You know that masked dance coming up?" Hikari nodded, she had been pulling to be in charge of taking pictures for the masquerade ball, but the chain of yearbook seniority was not making this feat easy. "Well…" the blush deepened, "There's this girl and I want to ask her to go… but she doesn't know I share the same planet as her. So Yamato is… _feeling out the situation_, he called it. Like talking me up, I guess." He looked at Hikari's disapproving expression and added, "It's necessary, trust me."

Hikari didn't speak for a moment. She liked how Koushiro didn't lie to her, he knew that she would always see right through any phony excuse he gave, but she didn't like how Yamato didn't encourage Koushiro to work on his self-confidence. "Why don't you talk to her yourself?"

Koushiro stood up straight and pushed his shoulders back, letting out a loud crack. "It's Yamato. He could sell Girl Scout cookies back to the Girl Scout. Girls listen to him, so I'm probably gonna sound better coming from him than anything I could muster up, not that I could because I would stutter and blush and look like a complete imbecile." Koushiro sighed and reached for a nearby chair and pulled it up beside Hikari's.

"Well just pretend you're talking to me or Miyako or Sora." Hikari purposely left out Mimi's name, as she often did since a disastrous dating experience the two shared before Mimi left for New York.

"Except I have no feelings towards any of you, as well as I know Miyako is happy with Ken, Sora is happy with Yamato and you are happy with-." He cut himself off. "I'm sorry, I keep forgetting."

"It's okay." Hikari sighed. "It's just a break."

Koushiro rolled his eyes and returned to selecting photos.

"What was that eye-roll for?"

"Nothing." Koushiro said, and with an angered huff from Hikari he continued, "You guys are always on and off breaks. You can't really expect me to keep up with it."

"Well it's not like it's my idea." Hikari defended quietly, and with a questioning look from Koushiro she added, "Every time."

"Okay, well I believe you."

"I'm serious!" Hikari exclaimed. "Okay, I'm going to tell you what happened and you tell me who was in the wrong, okay?"

Koushiro was taken aback from the outburst from the normally quiet-mannered girl. "Hikari, I don't think that's-"

"He thinks I'm jealous and that I don't trust him, which is ridiculous!"

"Hikari-"

"And he's always texting Catherine, remember that French girl he met when you and I went to Hong Kong? When he went to France last summer they hung out a lot. And like that's totally cool with me, I'm all for him having other female friends beside me but like she's _clearly_ flirting and he never says," Hikari deepened her voice, "Hey, Catherine, you're a cool girl but I have a girlfriend and I'm in a loving, monogamous, committed relationship and flirting just isn't going to fly!"

"Hikari,"

The small girl put her hands over her temples and sighed. "Would that be so hard? What is-"

"HIKARI!"

"What?"

Overwhelmed, Koushiro returned to the computer but his attention was not fully on the contents of his screen. "Look, I care about you and Takeru but I can't take sides on your relationship issues."

Hikari sank into her chair, feeling foolish. She never spoke to anyone about her issues with Takeru, it was especially difficult when all her friends were equally his friends. She usually confided in Miyako, whom she loved dearly, but had a big mouth notably when it came to Ken. He was too honest to keep anything a secret from anyone so he would, however unintentionally, relay these messages onto Takeru, who would, in turn, get more upset that Hikari couldn't keep their relationship between them, which would lead to a break. Once, Hikari had even sunk as low as confiding in her mother, who told her she was too young to be dating anyway.

She needed more friends.

"Oh, okay. I'm sorry." Hikari said meekly.

Koushiro stopped looking at the computer and returned his gaze to the short-haired brunette beside him. "Hikari, it's okay. I just… don't like picking sides. It's not like we're dealing with good and evil here. You and Takeru are both my friends and no matter if you're together or not, you are both equally important to me. And I mean, I'm not exactly the expert on love and relationships, my track record is pretty pathetic; But as a piece of advice from a completely uninvolved party, I would tell you that guys are generally blind when it comes to flirting. Sometimes they have to get their more charismatic friends to do it for them."

Hikari smiled appreciatively. "I say you tell this girl how you feel. Or if you can't manage that, tell her you like her outfit."

"Thanks for the advice, Kari, but we wear a uniform so whenever I see her she's wearing the exact same thing as every other girl in the vicinity."

Hikari laughed, looking down at the green uniform she was, herself, wearing. "Well, that's when you tell her it looks the best on her!"

Although Koushiro laughed and nodded, Hikari knew he would never say those things, he was too shy. The last girl he seriously liked, that Hikari knew of, was Mimi and that did not bode well for the two of them. The repercussions upon their group were ridiculous, sides were taken and grudges were held. For Koushiro to make a point not to take a side in the Hikari and Takeru situation was ironic, but understandable. They had all learned that inter-group dating was dangerous and so after the Koushiro x Mimi situation, everyone had learned their lesson: relationships were to be kept separate from everyone else and when this became difficult, in the event of a fight: no taking sides became the unwritten substitution.

"So, what's been on your mind lately?" Koushiro asked, returning to the selection of website-worthy pictures.

Hikari didn't know if she liked how Koushiro actually talked with her. Well, of course she liked it, he was like her token guy friend where no feelings towards each other ever complicated things like it did with Takeru or Daisuke. The older boys were too much like brothers and although she was fond of Iori, he was thirteen. And in Germany.

She twisted the watch around her wrist again. What had been bothering her lately wasn't something she wanted to share with anyone. She'd made the mistake of telling Taichi about her bruise and he'd gone and without using that brain, (the existence of which had always been up for debate) had caused complications. Udo couldn't play guitar for Yamato and that raised questions which Taichi had, thankfully, shrugged off. She didn't need anyone else knowing about her run-in with Udo, but Taichi's therapy sessions, which nobody outside their family knew about, had made dinner-time at home awkward. Hikari didn't know if Taichi had told the school shrink what had actually happened, and that was always on her mind. She hated appearing the victim. Even with Takeru and their breaks, she didn't want to be the victim. No otherworldly monsters taking her captive, childhood illness or jerks attempting to kiss her. Hikari refused to be a victim.

"Hikari?" Koushiro nudged Hikari.

Hikari shook her head, trying to find some reasonable situation she could have been pondering instead of resenting some invisible I AM A VICTIM sticker someone must have put on her forehead. What came to her mind was not something from out of the blue, but something that she often worried about. "Well, you know how it was five years between our first run in with the digital world, back in Highton View Terrace and then when we actually went to the digital world? And then four years after that was when Daisuke and the others joined us?"

"I've noticed that, yes."

"It's been three years since we defeated Malomyotismon, right? So it makes sense: five, four, _three._" Hikari held the respective fingers up as she counted. "Something's going to happen."

Koushiro looked at Hikari's worried expression, the pensive look on his face evaluating what his friend had just told him. "Did you see the movie _The Number 23_, Hikari?" After watching the small brunette shake her head, Koushiro continued.

"It's about this guy who is obsessed with the number 23. It starts by saying how almost every historical tragedy is related to 23: Hitler and the Jewish mass murders, the sinking of the Titanic, the foretold hypothetical end of the world. There's bible verses related to 23 with particularly ominous sayings and there's parts of the movie where the character circles the twenty-third letter on written documents and finds some sort of hidden message. By the climax he's terrified, thinking twenty-three is out to kill him when it's just a number." He looked at Hikari's disbelieving face and smiled.

"It's kind of farfetched, I mean, all I got from the movie was that if you want something to be something else, your mind will twist and contort it until it means what you want. My mom was convinced by the movie. She started adding the letters of her name, you know… A being 1, B being 2 and so forth and she was convinced it equalled 23 as well as our address and phone number. But she would subtract things and multiply it by other numbers until her result was twenty three.

That's what you're thinking, Hikari. Some Digital World catastrophe is your twenty-three. I'm not going to deny that I've been paranoid about something else happening, our friends getting hurt and maybe we won't get out as lucky as we have been in the past. But then I started thinking the antithesis. The opposite. Nothing's going to happen, Hikari. If we believe it, it will happen. We don't have to change things around or become paranoid. We've saved the world. Both of them. Maybe in generations to come some other danger will appear, but by then we'll be long gone. We'll be a lesson to future digidestend or whatever they end up calling themselves. We have lives to live. Actual, Earth-based lives. With family and friends and school and work. I'm not saying I don't miss Tentomon, or don't think about him all the time, because I do. I hope he's safe and happy and I hope he wishes the same for me. But that's all, Hikari, don't worry about it anymore."

"Are you sure, Koushiro?" Hikari asked, as she started spinning her watch around her wrist.

"Well, think about it. There's no evil left. What could happen?"

Hikari lowered her head. He was right. She was looking for something in this. She didn't want to be the victim so badly that she brought it upon herself. It was like the sticker on her head was some flashing neon sign and it was magnified every time she thought about how badly she didn't want that label. Sitting back and sinking in her self-pity was not going to make it anymore. She needed to go out and be aggressive, starting with the chain of seniority for the chance to photograph the masquerade ball. She wasn't going to make being a victim or some potential Digital World disaster her twenty-three. Hikari let her hands fall back to her lap and looked at the time on her watch's small screen. 3:44. No twenty-three.

"You want to know something funny?" Koushiro asked, smiling and turning back to the computer screen.

Hikari nodded and watched as Koushiro pulled the memory card from the computer and handed it to her. "You just spun your watch around your wrist exactly twenty-three times."


	5. Love and Friendship

_**CHAPTER FOUR**_

Sora had never been really musical. She had attempted to play the clarinet with disastrous results in elementary school, and Yamato often tried to teach her guitar chords on rainy Saturdays. Chords that she would never be able to play back to him, even fifteen minutes after Yamato had directed her fingers and placed them on the appropriate places on his guitar. However miniscule her musical ability was, she never got bored of watching her boyfriend play up on stage. Her _boyfriend_, she liked saying that even more.

The auditorium was empty aside from the band, including Paul Udo's replacement, and their posse of staff and herself sitting, scattered, in the front three rows. She heard the heavy double-doors open and she turned around to see Takeru come in, followed closely by Ken and the two of them sat about a dozen rows behind Sora.

The stage-manager and Yamato's manager were shouting back and forth with some concert-related drabble and Sora caught Yamato's eye. She loved when this happened. He stopped picking at his guitar to make a face at her and Sora stifled a laugh. He did a brilliant imitation of their band manager and as if he knew the thought was in Sora's brain the two shared a smile. Sora squinted, although she was only in the third row, she could hardly make out what Yamato was mouthing to her until he took his hand and started… tickling his neck?

_Stop fidgeting. _She figured out and she let go of her necklace. He smiled again and the band manager yelled at him for not paying attention.

Yamato always teased her about that, fidgeting. He often told people that he had to make sure any sort of jewellery he got her was durable because there was no way it would survive the test of Sora's absentminded habit. The necklace she was wearing now was what he got her for their one-year anniversary. It was a heart shape, cliché and ordinary- until she opened it. On one side was the angled ornate 'L' that looked like a heart, on the other was something that Sora always pictured being a Ying-Yang symbol with a casing and wings. The crests of Love and Friendship. It was them. They'd been friends for years, started to get serious when they were fifteen but never were official until eighteen months ago.

She looked down at her lap where she had replaced her necklace fidgeting by tapping her pencil on her notebook in tune to the beat of Yamato's drummer. They had been practicing for an hour, setting up for a concert. Prepping for concerts was something Sora always liked to watch, it reminded her that she was the one here when the auditorium was empty. Sure, thousands of girls had his picture in their bedroom like she did, and girls would harvest and sell their own organs just to hold his hand, but she actually could. All organs intact. She was his.

Takeru and Ken were silent behind her, Sora looked back and the two of them were writing. For some reason Sora suspected Takeru was working on his short story for a contest he was very avid on winning, but Sora disagreed with how he was going about it. His story was based on the time the older digidestend, herself included, were held captive in some alter-dimension by Chocomon, a digimon determined to return to a former time when his digidestined partner, Wallace, was younger. Thus ensued the younger digidestined trying to get from Japan to America to meet up with Wallace and stop his crazed partner, all the while his captives were getting younger and younger by the minute. Sora shook her head. It felt like some bad dream she had once had, even the memories of it were getting fewer and farther apart.

Sora had tried to convince Takeru not to write it, it could blow their cover that Gennai had so vigilantly set up. The digital world and their partners were safe from potentially dangerous human-caused disaster. Any memorable digimon appearances were believed to be illusions by movie companies and the world-wide digidestined were normal kids. Takeru had argued that he was writing it as a piece of fiction, he changed everyone's names but Sora was sceptical. Changing names? It's like what a magazine would do when telling a risqué story to protect the identities of those involved. But since Sora disagreed with Takeru's choice of plotline, her punishment was that the character based on her, Katie, was a scrawny girl with braces, a horrible overbite and a lisp. Takeru was angry and he took it out on a fictional version of Sora. Which still, for some reason, hurt.

The water stain that rippled the first few pages of Sora's notebook brought a frown to her lips. She flipped through the pages in tune to the bass-line Yamato was strumming, looking at the sketches she had made over the last two years. Dresses, outfits and fabric patterns were sketched in the lined pages, several pages depicted war-stories they fought with Sora's over-eagar eraser and lost, only to be reconstructed with tape and rehabilitated with a pencil. This process was repeated over and over. This was what she wanted to do, Sora had decided. Design clothes. Her mother had been excited, it wasn't quite the flower shop but it was a feminine choice. So, Sora had gotten a job at the dress shop in her neighbourhood. _Le Belle Femme_, which Yamato told her meant, _The Beautiful Woman_ in French. Takeru, who was now apparently wise and all-knowing when it came to the language of "_amour" _after spending the summer with his grandparents in France, told her that it should be _La Femme Belle_ in order to be grammatically correct. Sora kept her mouth shut in order to save poor fictional Katie from getting a mutilating rash or some other probable misfortune.

"Hello in there?" Sora shook her head and smiled up at the hovering figure of Yamato, "I'll drop you off at your work while I go get changed and then pick you up on the way back here, alright?" Sora slapped his hand as he reached down to grab her backpack to add to his collection of stuff he was carrying: his guitar, school bag and the bag he used for all his music stuff.

"I'll carry it." She scolded while putting dropping her notebook in.

Yamato, feigning a hurt look, protested, "But what else are us big, strong men good for?" He laughed and held out his hand.

Sora slung her backpack over her shoulder and slipped her hand into Yamato's. "Hmm, that's actually a good question. I have to think."

"Not funny." Yamato scolded, leading her behind the stage and to the hallway where the back entrance was.

"Still thinking." Sora hummed.

Yamato huffed. "Well, think about this!" He laughed as, in one fluid motion, he dropped his bags and grabbed Sora around the waist and shifted his hands under her knees until he held the girl up in his arms, Sora's shrieks turning into bursts of laughter as he did so.

They looked out the back door to the parking lot, the glass allowing them to see the pouring rain drenching the pavement. It looked hours later than the four-thirty that it showed on the clock above their heads, the street lamps highlighting pools of water along the dim streets, the steady onset of cars driving past adding to the beams of light.

"Looks inviting." Yamato sighed as he let Sora slide out of his arms.

Sora nodded, not commenting on the sarcasm in his voice, as she repositioned her hands to each of Yamato's cheeks and pulled his head towards hers.

Kissing Yamato was nice. Light and soft and romantic. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach and her knees felt like they could give way any moment. That was the way kisses should always feel, she assumed from her limited amount of experience. The only other kisses she had were- _Crap_ she thought, how could she let any thoughts of freaking _Taichi_ come into her head while she was kissing Yamato?

As if he could tell her thoughts had changed, Yamato pulled away. He pressed his lips to Sora's forehead and handed her backpack to the red-headed girl. The demure smile on his lips let no hint that he knew what had invaded his girlfriend's mind, and she promised herself that he never would. They would stop coming eventually.

xxx

Sora loved the smell of Yamato's car. It was a mix of his cologne and cinnamon from the guitar-shaped air freshener that hung from his rear-view mirror. She looked in said mirror at Yamato, rain falling on him as he put his school bag in the trunk. His guitar and music bag took up the back seat while Sora's own bag rested on her feet.

"God, it's pissing out there." Yamato grumbled as he swung into the driver's seat and slammed the car door. He had turned the car on right away to keep Sora warm, although she looked quite the opposite in her uniform and powder-blue coat, her knees and thighs reddened by the cold.

Yamato looked at her fondly and Sora felt her cheeks heat up. She wondered how he managed to get her to heat up just with his eyes. "You look great today, Sor. Your hair is really nice."

He smiled again and then fastened his seatbelt. Sora pulled at a, now wet, lock of her red hair. She hadn't done much with her hair this morning besides pulling her overgrown bangs back with a bobby pin. But she always appreciated the complement. "Thank, Matt." She said, using the shortened version of his name.

"Anytime." He obliged, reaching over and affectionately squeezing her now-scarlet thigh before reversing out of the parking space and easing onto the main street.

She knew Yamato liked long hair. Whenever she commented on this fact, he didn't deny it but insisted that she was beautiful the way she was. Sora twisted the wet hair around her finger, her hair was not long. It barely brushed her shoulders, and although she had spent the last year and a half that they had been together trying to grow it out she had achieved maybe just over two and a half inches in that time. Sora recalled learning about how the Earth's continental plates moved at the same rate as a person's fingernails. She looked down at her ridiculously short nails, keratin just didn't like her. If hair was supposed to grow the same rate as fingernails and shifting continental plates, she was clearly defective. Japan would be nestled comfortably beside Hawaii before Sora's hair grew the six inches she was coveting.

"Here you are, Madam." Yamato said presumptuously with a cheeky smile, "I'll be back in maybe ten minutes, okay?"

"I'll be here." Sora smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

She opened her door and grabbed her bag, shivering as she stood on the sidewalk. "You better be!" Yamato laughed. "See you."

Sora waved as Yamato drove his small blue Mitsubishi down the street, and she didn't cease waving until the car turned around the corner, out of sight. Sora turned to look up at the tall shop window with the (grammatically incorrect) title emblazoned into the glass, tomorrow it was her job to change the dresses on the window mannequins. It seemed boring but she was excited: It'd been a week and she hadn't done much besides hanging up dresses and manning the cashier's station.

As if the chime from the door opening triggered another greeting, a voice called from behind the racks of massive poofy dresses, "Sora, lamb!"

Vivienne DeLaurence owned the store but she wasn't from Japan, as her strange accent made clear. It was too muddled to be from any one place, and she insisted on calling Sora a lamb. According to one of Sora's coworkers, one who their boss referred to as Kitten, Vivienne always kept pet names literal, by using names of animals.

"Hi, Miss DeLaurence." Sora returned.

Vivienne came into view, a pink dress under her arm and several safety pins in her mouth. It always astounded Sora how the woman could have pins or tape or fabric in her mouth and still speak as clear as her strange accent allowed. "Thanks for coming, Lamb. I just put the money in the safe. You just need to lock up the display boxes, keys are on the counter." Before Sora could respond, her boss went, dress in hand and pins in mouth, into the back storage room.

The display boxes held shoes, jewellery and other random accessories to go with dresses people bought. Most of the dresses were for formal dances, like prom or homecoming, with a section of wedding dresses. Sora often dreamed of the sketches she made in her water-stained book becoming actual dresses and hung up alongside the other gowns in here.

There were eighteen display boxes. Sora always did the ones with shoes first, they were at the front of the store, and worked her way to the back with the girly Mimi-esque accessories. Sora's favourite was the one she always left to lock up last. There were two necklaces: one pearl and the other rhinestone, pearl earrings and a very ornate ring. But in the center of the box, there was a tiara. Now, the store was full of tiaras, much like the one Mimi wore to her Welcome Home party, but this one was Sora's favourite. It was small, understated, with only a few sparkles and beautiful designs of woven vine-like metal holding the rhinestones in place. Sora gingerly lifted and stared at it. With a light hand, she placed the tiara on her head and looked in the mirrored surface of the display box. She looked ridiculous. Mimi could pull off a tiara to a fast food restaurant or a sporting event, but Sora always looked like she was trying way too hard. The carroty colour of her hair, even more-so since it was stringy from the rain, didn't complement the light silver and white of the tiny crown, and her head-shape made the tiara look lopsided. Most of the dresses in the store would probably look like they were swallowing her up if she ever felt adventurous enough to try them on. Even her own designs would never suit her. She just felt like Katie: the awkward, ugly duckling.

Sora took the tiara off her head and placed it back in the center of the display, draping the pearl necklace over it as it had been. Sora could see Yamato's car parked outside, the headlights shining through the emblazoned window and reflecting off the multitude of mirrors in the shop.

After making sure each small mirrored-cabinet was locked, Sora called back to Vivienne to report it being so, with an accented thank-you in return.

On her way to the front of the store Sora stopped, as she always did, to look at her favourite dress in the whole store. It hung on a mannequin beside the rows of brightly coloured prom-gowns. Sora had found it especially painful to watch some thirty-something year old lady try it on for some gala, and the sigh of relief was very audible after the lady wanted a different silhouette. The dress was navy-blue with a modest sparkle, form fitting from the bandeaux style bodice, until it met a beautiful bunch of jewels at the hip and from there it fell down to the floor in a cascade of midnight starry-sky fabric, draping to the carpet and breaking Sora's heart. She was too tall. Too skinny. Not enough curves (or any curves for that matter) and she slouched. Even her personality was wrong, she had a serious lack of confidence, no stage-presence and a stubborn temper that often got blamed on her hair colour. She just wasn't fit to wear the most gorgeous dress in the world. The Modern Cinderella Gown, Vivienne called it. A dress for a princess.

The door chimed and Sora looked to see Yamato, his hair curling slightly from the rain, sporting a pair of jeans and a navy-blue blazer. "Your chariot awaits." He announced with an embellished, cheesy bow. Yes, the magazine that had been circling around town for the past few days was right, Yamato was indeed Prince Charming.

But she was no princess.


	6. Flashing Before Their Eyes

_**CHAPTER FIVE**_

It was midnight. The rain had finally stopped after it had been arguing with itself over angrily pouring and a comfortable shower. Pools of water were slowly growing due to residual water dripping off tree branches and overfilled gutters. A theatre where a concert had ended two and a half hours earlier finally shut off its lights after the stage had been cleared and the auditorium had been swept. Several dresses with long flowy skirts were blowing in the late-night breeze that resonated from a slightly opened window out the back of a small dress shop. Computers in the local high school that had been left on sleep-mode since dismissal time that afternoon, all but one, that finally flickered off after performing a virus-sweep assigned by a student. Upstairs, a large chestnut desk creaked as if to ask a question to the files of paper that sat atop it.

A couple hours away lay a stretch of beach, empty except for a parked green Honda and a small girl kneeling in the sand, furiously throwing upheavals as she dug, the wind blowing her cascade of brown and pink hair around her shoulders mimicking the seawater waves splashing on the coastline several feet in front of her. The thick grey clouds above her head were beginning to dissipate, and although the rain had stopped, there was a flash of light. The evenings rainstorm had been absent from thunder and lightning, but this flash of light drew no attention from the few people who had not gone to bed, and aside from a small flutter of her heart, it did not alarm the girl. The light faded quickly, leaving a faint fog reminiscent of that left behind after the brilliant colours of fireworks fade. The girl did not notice that the flash of what she assumed to be lightning, left a smoky haze in a certain tear-drop shape, lingering in the sky above her head.

_Sincerity_

Creaks from an aged couch's angry springs sounded as the young man atop it rolled absently in his sleep. There lay an open book face-down on his chest and his bulky cell-phone was tucked in his folded arm. Sleep had seemingly won him over before his need to study had faded. The pile of flashcards fell from his limp-from-sleep hand onto the carpeted floor of his dorm-room. Beside him on the floor was a foreboding stack of similar books, atop of which lay a broken hair clip, his attempt to fix it had not gone successfully and he had decided it could wait until morning. The second flash of light did not disturb his slumber although the reflection on his displaced glasses clearly reflected the leftover fog shaping itself into a discernible embellished cross shape that almost immediately faded back into fog and then just as suddenly, disappeared.

_Reliability_

The music from a car radio shut off, soon followed by the headlights and the engine altogether. Nothing moved for a moment until someone emerged, the night's darkness making him nearly invisible except from his slightly tousled blond hair and the white shirt he wore under his blue blazer. He climbed the backstairs quickly and effortlessly, making almost no sound as he ascended the apartment building steps until his knowledge of window placement in comparison to fire escapes led to the window he sought. The third flash of light did not startle him as the first one had, and just like he had missed the first two, the third misty shape did not catch his attention. As he carefully pulled his body into the room and settled down on the bed beside the red-headed girl he knew to be feigning sleep, the mirror beside him displayed the reflection a fading shape: A ying-yang like symbol with a winged frame.

_Friendship_

At the sound of his soft voice saying her name she couldn't help but smile, keeping her eyes closed. "You did great tonight." She whispered as he slipped off his shoes and she held up the blanket for him to slip under. "As always." He responded to her with a soft forehead kiss and closed his eyes. She opened her own auburn ones and gazed at him with fondness, the fourth flash of light almost highlighting his statuesque features. She fiddled with a pendant that hung around her neck and he lifted his arm from her back where he had been spelling out invisible words on her back to take her hand. She did not fight it, wanting the warmth of his hand more than the comfort the locket gave her. She closed her eyes again, not wanting morning to come because she knew he would be gone before she woke up, before her mother woke up. The shape outside waited for her to notice, but at the sight of her closed eyes, began to fade. The red-headed girl pulled herself closer to her boyfriend relishing how soft the cotton of her pajamas felt, pressed against her skin from his arm around her. This was the last thought she had before drifting off to sleep, as the same combined L and heart shape from her locket, mirrored in the sky disappeared completely.

_Love_

A silent curse was on his lips. The boy, frustrated and exhausted, was preparing his morning rant to his mother about how she had gotten him addicted to these Crime Scene dramas. His constant flow of reasons why he didn't want to watch them flew through his mind. The inaccuracies, the guest stars, the cheesy one-liners that made an entryway from the theme song... But now he was hooked. Hooked, and with a favour and a list of homework that he had intended to make a significant dent in on a Thursday night so he could pace himself for the weekend. He walked down the hall mentally writing a point of how his mother had just negatively affected his chances of finishing his penultimate high-school year with desired grades and the computer time he allotted himself each night. He picked up his toothbrush and looked in awe as a flash of light lit up the bathroom. He thought he'd seen others but they didn't take his attention from the television screen. He returned his attention to the bathroom mirror as from outside the fogged and tinted bathroom window, two different sized circles bridged by a line appeared like a magicians smoke trick.

_Knowledge_

He was asleep. Fast asleep. Or so he told himself as he lay face down into his pillow with the blankets twisted around his body. He replayed the conversation that had been replaying in his head for the last six hours. How he deserved the coveted position on his soccer team but the coach didn't consider it wise to give it to someone who wasn't in control of their temper. A leader shouldn't be so impulsive but should consider all possible options before deciding on a move, and considering all options again if the move could end badly. Obviously a certain shrink, a certain principal or a certain sister, the boy decided, had leaked an incident involving a certain stupid guitar freak. He knew he wasn't a perceptive person, but it was hard to miss the disappointment on the coach's face. Ever since agreeing they'd have a meeting the following day to decide the person who should, in fact, be team captain, the boy was sick to his stomach. He didn't even necessarily want to be captain; he didn't necessarily want to be leader. As a sixth and final flash of light filled the room, the flashes of light being the reason he was face down in his pillow, the thought filled his mind. _But I don't know anything else._ With a heavy sigh he pulled his twisted blanket from underneath his body and pulled it above his uncombed mass of brown hair. Behind the pulled curtains over the screen-doors, the final symbol appeared in the sky. The leftover smoky mist from the flash seemed to pull itself together into a circle, followed by a larger one surrounding it complete with rays of shimmery mist encircling the rings and forming a hazy otherworldly sun.

_Courage_

The final shape slowly dissolved, leaving behind no traces of the night's storm and the sky was left blank, with nothing but a sheer blanket of stars. As if the flashes and sky symbols had triggered a reaction, twelve devices that had lain dormant for three years turned on. Some were stowed away in subtle drawers or old purses, some hidden in car glove-compartments and one lay in an unpacked suitcase thousands of miles away. Six however, coloured and larger than the others, turned off almost immediately while the other half-dozen remained on, shining a faint electronic light. The glow emanating from the six like-coloured devices, square in shape and small in size, grew steadily brighter and brighter until they lit up: not just a drawer or a shoebox but the whole room. And then, the six devices, with the lights and the sleeping individuals to whom they belonged, disappeared.


	7. Panic

_**CHAPTER SIX**_

He knew it was her without looking at his phone. He knew exactly what her tone of voice was going to be and the exact words she was going to say. The only thing he didn't know, was what he was going to say in return.

xxx

When Takeru woke up that morning, he had a headache. Not the normal headache he got from staying up too late writing with the lights dimmed or from eating too many sweets, but like something had fallen on his head during the night and although it didn't wake him up, it was causing his head to throb.

Without paying much attention to what he was putting on, Takeru auto-piloted his way through his drawers and his closet until he was fully dressed. "Hey, Mom, I'm going to meet Izzy." Koushiro had gone to the public library the other day and Takeru had listed off a couple books he needed, how-to writing books and stories that would be good inspiration were among the list, and the red-headed boy had agreed to get them for him.

"Okay." She replied, tapping at the keyboard in the other room. Takeru had considered reporting as a career, his accomplished mother could help him get his foot in the door, but after one attempt his writing teacher had deemed his non-fictional style "_too_ _glossy and not enough objectivity"_. So fiction it was.

"Is Izzy a girl from school?" Natsuko asked.

Takeru stopped in his tracks and then turned into the corner of the kitchen that had become his mother's makeshift office. "Are you serious?" He waited for a response that didn't come, "Izzy! You know, Koushiro Izumi!"

Clearly not convinced, Natsuko didn't look up from her computer screen, reminding Takeru of the aforementioned red-head. "Whatever." He mumbled, his mother was in her writing mojo, she probably just wasn't paying attention. Takeru grabbed his shoes from the door and settled down on the couch to put them on. Noticing the couch was vacant, which was quite unusual for a Friday morning when there was no school. "Yamato didn't sleep here?"

"Yamato who?"

Takeru faked a laugh but played along. "Ha, ha. You know, that kid you birthed before me? He has a fifth limb he calls a guitar?"

Natsuko pushed her chair back from the desk to give her son an appraising glance. "You know, you used to pretend you had an older brother when you were really little. Your dad probably has some home videos of it."

A weird feeling entered his stomach, "I don't need to pretend since I _actually have one._"

Takeru's mother shook her head and laughed, giving her son one last curious glance before returning to her work. "I definitely agree that fiction writing was the way to go for you. Or acting, Takeru, you're very believable."

"Then why don't you believe me? You're being impossible, Mom." Pausing to deal with his frustration that was adding to the intensity of his headache, he figured he'd get around this silly game. "Okay then, who lives with Dad?"

Without looking up from the computer screen Natsuko replied, "His new wife. Don't go playing the broken family card Takeru, I don't have time for this."

"His… his new what?"

Without a pause, Takeru's mother added, "You were only his best man at their wedding, Takeru."

The blond boy's jaw flung open. Either this was some very elaborate prank his mother was playing, or he was still asleep. Once he read an article about dreams and it said that it is impossible to find a working light switch in a dream. Alright, Takeru decided, as he made his way to the kitchen light and flicked it on and off, the light behaving as it should. _Damn it._

"What was that for?" Natsuko scolded.

Without a reply to his mother Takeru exited the apartment and made his way to the elevator. It was times like this where having Miyako and Iori in the same building was a convenience when Takeru needed to rant; but as Iori was abroad and his grandfather and mother wouldn't be much use, Miyako's empty apartment would be even less. Takeru began walking the five blocks to the Izumi residence.

As he turned down their street, Takeru picked the miscellaneous loose twigs out of the hedges that lined Izzy's apartment building. Koushiro liked being on the ground floor but Takeru had been present one afternoon when Mr. Izumi went on a huge rant about the "hooligans" that would play ding-dong-dash during those late-night hours. He had always been tempted to try it, but the usually calm Izumi Masami being angry was a frightening sight.

Almost as soon as Takeru knocked the door, it swung open. Instead of Takeru's friend or either of his parents, a preteen girl answered the door. "Um…" Takeru stuttered, not recalling if Koushiro had a younger cousin staying with his family. Before he could ask the girl, the door opened wider to reveal a woman with short blonde hair.

"Can I help you?" She asked, her tone strong as she protectively grabbed the young girl's shoulder.

Takeru shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and had to force words out of his lips, "I was looking for Izumi Koushiro?" He didn't often use the formal presentation of any of his friends' names but he deemed this an appropriate situation to do so.

The woman's face softened, "Sorry hon, you must have the wrong hou-" She stopped herself and a wave of understanding washed over her face. "Izumi?"

Takeru nodded, still trying to process what was going on.

"That was the name of the couple that lived her before. They said they didn't need the extra bedroom so they were downsizing. Wow, that must have been eight, maybe nine years ago."

"Oh, uh, thank you anyway." Takeru said and the lady nodded politely before closing the door.

What the hell was going on? He settled down on the curb and took his cell phone from his pocket. He'd call Yamato, maybe he would have some sort of explanation. Takeru went to his contact list and automatically pressed the key to take him straight to the bottom of the list. Yuri, Yaza - what? Takeru frantically scrolled up as if his phone had somehow unalphabetized his contacts. Where was Yamato? Takeru tried to remember what Yamato's number was but he couldn't get past the first three digits. Fine, Dad it is. Takeru put the phone to his ear and waited until someone picked up, his father.

"Hey Dad-"

"Takeru! I'm so glad you phoned! I know we planned to have you over for dinner tonight but something came up so do you think we could reschedule for Sunday night instead?"

"Uh- Sure?"

"Great. Anyway, Son, what were you calling to say?"

"Is Yamato there?"

"Ya-ma-to…" His father sounded out the syllables as if he was a five year old first learning to read. "I don't believe I know anyone by that name, sorry! Your mom used to like an actor by that name though, ironic, huh?"

"Yeah… um, Dad I have to go…"

"Bye, Takeru! Have a great day and I'll see you Sunday!"

Without a response Takeru hung up. What was going on? Why was his dad so cheerful? Was what his mom said true? His dad… married? Takeru had very few memories of his parents even being married to each other, he always just knew his dad as a bachelor. The permanent bachelor, his mom _used _to say. He'd work ridiculous hours, twelve or thirteen at once sometimes. After that he'd come home, grab a beer from the fridge and hunch over on the balcony until his beer and a cigarette were gone, then go to bed. That man on the phone may have sounded like Ishida Hiroaki, but it was not his father. Panic was starting to set in as Takeru frantically started scrolling through the rest of his contacts. No Koushiro. No Taichi. No Sora. No-

"No!"

Takeru looked up to see the shrill shout that had interrupted his panicked thoughts. "No, officer, this isn't possible!" The woman was pacing circles around a police officer. The woman was younger than Takeru's mother, maybe thirty or so. She looked like she had just come back from work, her shade of light brown hair vaguely familiar.

"Miss Tachikawa, please calm down." The officer said forcefully. Tachikawa? Mimi! Takeru looked again at the thirty-something year-old woman who was now hyperventilating. Aside from the similar coloured hair and apparently her last name, there were not many other similarities between this woman to the girl Takeru knew. Or thought he knew. Her aunt! She was panicking just like Takeru was, maybe Mimi was gone too, and Miss Tachikawa was freaking out!

Without any restraint, Takeru bolted over to the other side of the street to the frantic woman and the stressed cop. "I know what's happened!" He offered to the cop.

"So do I." He said, eying the tall blonde suspiciously. "Not that it's your business-"

"_My car!_" Mimi's aunt sobbed.

"Car?" Takeru asked, more confused than ever.

The cop sighed, trying to calm down Keisuke Tachikawa's younger sister while retaining professionalism. "Miss Tachikiwa phoned this morning to report her car being stolen. About an hour ago it was discovered out on the coast, unlocked and unattended. It's been towed and I am the police escort, there are some questions that have to be answered. Like how there is no tampering with the car. The keys were found in the sand on the beach and it appears nothing was stolen. Do you know Miss Tachikiwa?"

Mimi's aunt stopped her sobbing for a moment, another likeness to her niece, and examined Takeru. "I've never seen this boy before. He must be a suspect!"

The cop looked from the woman to Takeru, his face calm with traces of irritation. "You better scoot, kid. You don't want to get involved."

Obeying the police officers suggestion Takeru turned the opposite way and starting walking back to where he lived. Or where he thought he lived? Everything was confusing. Mimi's aunt probably wouldn't have recognized him anyway, but she might have assumed him to be one of her nieces friends? And Takeru knew Koushiro and his family had lived in that same apartment for the many years he had known them. His dad was not married and Yamato was very much an existing person. Or was any of this true?

Takeru didn't say anything to his mother when he re-entered their home and made a beeline to his bedroom. The box he kept under his bed was where all his pictures were stowed, there had to be some proof that he wasn't going completely nuts. A picture of him and Hikari at the carnival last year, just as he remembered it. Him, Iori, Miyako outside their apartment during the summer. His "glory shot" Daisuke called it, of Takeru making a basket during a big game last year. Alright… everything was as it should be. But then he pulled out what he thought was the last family picture of him, his parents and Yamato… but the whole thing was wrong. Not only was Yamato missing, his parents were sitting beside each other holding the two-year old Takeru. Another picture, a group one of the original digidestined… it just seemed like a big amount of empty space with him and Hikari, eight years old and making the same facial expressions they had on before, except they were not on either side of their older brothers, but floating in the middle.

Everything was wrong.

Takeru's phone vibrated in his pocket, and he knew who it was. It was about time he could talk to someone who knew what was going on. Someone who didn't think he was crazy. Someone who, although they hadn't been on the best of terms lately, he needed more than ever. He put the phone to his ear without looking at the screen and spoke, suddenly more sure of anything than he had been for a large portion of the day.

"Hi, Hikari."


	8. Prince Charming

_**CHAPTER SEVEN**_

He awoke with a start. _Crap_, he thought. _I slept in. Is Sora's mom up yet?_

As his thoughts faded from his mind and his surroundings became clearer, Yamato was confused. Who were these men sitting in the room with him? Why was one, notably older and heftier than the other three and himself, looking at Yamato with a sour blend of disdain and admiration?

"Did you have a pleasant sleep?" He asked, his voice gruff and raspy, his words woven with an accent that Yamato had never heard before.

More questions filled Yamato's head. Who was this man? Why was he dressed like a snooty retired admiral from old war movies? Why were the other three, similarly dressed men sitting in plush chairs on the side of the room, looking from Yamato to the bigger man like they were high-school kids waiting for a hallway fight? What time was it? Where was Sora? _Where was he?_

"Uh, yes, I did." Yamato answered, still half-believing himself to be asleep.

But as the words left his mouth Yamato felt awake. Fully awake. There were no blurs in his peripheral vision, no faint feeling of numbness in his toes, no Sora. He always dreamed about Sora.

_Who was Sora?_

As any trace of sleep left his system, everything he had thought of up until then had left his mind. Just like waking up and clinging onto the remnants of a particularly good dream, but the memory of it fades as soon as you step out of bed.

"Irresponsible. Do you expect me to repeat everything you have missed?"

Yamato didn't know what to say. He felt confused and lost, he wasn't quite sure where he was or what he was doing there but he knew it was supposed to be. He was supposed to be sitting in this room.

"If you want." He said, not knowing what else to say. The other men in the room exchanged confused glances and the older man pulled at his neatly trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard with frustration.

"Am I expected to start at the beginning?" He asked, his face reddening and ham-sized fists clenching.

"Please." Yamato said sensing that any disrespect would not be appreciated.

Before Yamato's request was processed, one of the three men on the side stood up. "Kairo, if I may, just give a brief run down. Start with the ball." He sat back down, proud of his words that had been accented, Yamato noted, the same way the older man's had.

The bearded man, Assumedly Kairo, nodded with appreciation. "In four days you will attend the coronation ball. Three-hundred invitations have been sent out, ninety of them are addressed to important people, scholars, Lords, and the like of whom you must impress. It is crucial that you befriend them, as they will be indispensable for your goals to succeed."

"What-" Yamato began, not comprehending most of what had just been said. Obviously done with the teenage boy's blasé mannerisms, Kairo did not let him finish.

"The rest of the guests will be young-ladies with noble heritage, most being the daughters or nieces of Lords from various Orendian townships. You must be courteous to each of them, but you may find one who holds your interest and if all is approved, a legal partnership may be arranged."

Yamato suddenly sat up straight, "You mean get married?" His shock made his words sharp and his hands shaky. "I'm eighteen!"

"Yes, it had been argued that this had been long overdue, but the coronation has been scheduled since the downfall of your predecessor and a female presence beside the crown is favourable."

To stop his shaking hands, Yamato gripped his knees. He noted the blue pants he was wearing and the white chemise top, this didn't feel right. His mouth went dry as he tried to recall why he would pick something like this to wear this morning. Did he even pick it? Why couldn't he remember? What was happening to him? "Wait, whose coronation is this?"

Kairo and the three men on the side of the room went silent. Yamato could hear voices in the distance beyond the heavily ornate door and the din of a town coming from outside the small window at the top of the wall. He was prepared to ask his question again, but the same man who had spoken to Kairo earlier spoke slowly and kindly, although there were undertones of a kind of condescension an adult would display when speaking to a child.

"It's yours, Yamato. After Prince Marius' disappearance, you were chosen. Your uncle is one of the very distinguished members of the Orendian hierarchy and respected amongst the town elders. He has spoken highly of you since you were a small child. Your presence is calming, your charisma and personable character made you a favourite amongst the council. Not to mention the citizens of Orenda. It had been foretold many times that it will be under your reign that these decades of disasters will finally end."

Yamato didn't know where to begin. What disasters? What happened to Prince Marius? Who was his Uncle? "So… I'm going to be king?" This should have stroked his ego but instead a slap of fear filled Yamato's being.

"No." Kairo took over from the younger officer. "You're being crowned Prince. The requirements to become king are finding a wife and the disasters must end during your rule. You know this, there has not been a king of Orenda since the disasters began."

Silence filled the room. Yamato was processing these thoughts. Somehow the thought of being a prince felt vaguely familiar, but having subjects and a task to complete in order to secure his spot? That was not.

"Pell?" Kairo spoke, and the informative officer looked up. "Escort Yamato back to his quarters, then I want you to summon a doctor from town. This unfamiliarity with news that he has been told consistently over the past week is not a good sign for our young prince-to-be."

Pell stood up and obliged as he motioned towards the door, encouraging Yamato with a smile.

xxx

The two young men walked down the long stone corridors, several people crossing their path and giving Yamato enamoured glances. Pell was chattering about people and events, gossiping like a young girl, and the likeness made Yamato grin. Pell was older than himself, his voice and composure made Yamato think twenty-three, but the rest of Pell's appearance betrayed him. He had baby-face, pale, round and freckled with curious blue eyes and peach coloured curls framing his high cheeks. Although he was tall and notably more muscular than Yamato, one might mistake the younger blonde with his chiselled features to be the older one out of the pair.

"A lot more ladies have responded to your ball than any of the previous ones. I thought Marius got a big reception, but yours has been much better. Double, at least. You're a lucky man, Yamato. My mother says you are so charming that you could sell fish to a fisherman."

This statement took Yamato aback; a sense of something filled his body… déjà vu maybe? Like someone had said that, or something like that to him before. He couldn't remember who or if it had been the same expression, but it sent shivers down his spine.

Pell noted Yamato's slight pause and shiver and laughed cordially. "There is quite a noticeable draft in the lower parts of the castle, but it's nice on those hot, hot days. Luckily the sun has been behaving normally for the past couple days. The tides have been noticeably calmer too. Maybe the Six Powers are settling down, a great sign for you!"

The way Pell spoke of these "Six Powers" was with a reverence that caused Yamato to not flat out ask what they were, offending the one person who had shown him some kindness today didn't seem like a good plan. "What do you think is causing the disasters? The Six Powers?"

He was careful when deciding upon his phrasing. Pell looked at Yamato curiously, but smiled. "I think that's a fair assumption. It's been a pretty common theory over the past few years, the glowing symbols being the root of it all. I think there's been some disruption between the six, and although all the princes have tried to figure it out by travelling to each six statues, I suppose the Powers haven't approved, so each prince disappears, falls ill, dies mysteriously, goes craz-"

He stopped before finishing and observed Yamato's worried face. "Don't worry, you'll be fine. I think Kairo was a bit worried when you started playing forgetful in the Council Room, but I thought it was funny. Keep the positive attitude, look at it like you'll be the one to save us, not the thirty-fifth prince deemed inept to continue the role. Just stay positive!"

Positive? Yamato nodded. The only thing he was positive about was that his name was Yamato and he was screwed.

They stopped walking through the dimly torch-lit passageways and began taking stairs upwards. The torches became fewer and fewer, replaced with wide windows with flowing curtains and ornate stained glass designs; The walls were no longer made of dark gray stones but white bricks, the walls decorated with huge paintings and the occasional woven tapestry. The main floor, or what Yamato assumed was the main floor based on the multitude of people flurrying past with various tasks and bright coloured outfits, was huge and bright. Yamato could see, at the end of the hall they were in, was a door, monstrous in size with shapes and symbols carved into the mahogany wood with a huge brass door handle, probably half the size of Yamato's own six foot frame.

The Grand Hall. He somehow knew. Where princes were crowned, married and balls were held. Somehow this locked room became the epitome of the unknown. The known unknown, as apparently some part of Yamato's subconscious knew what lay behind those elaborate doors.

"Pell?" A voice said from behind them, "Kairo told me to find you; you have a message for town?"

Yamato and Pell both turned around to face the owner of the voice, ignoring Yamato and staring straight at his baby-faced companion. The messenger was not as tall as the two of them, but he had a strong jaw and a patchy attempt of a short beard. He was the opposite of Pell, he looked older than his actual age.

The sight of him paralyzed Yamato, memories being stuffed into his already-overloaded mind. More questions surfaced, but Yamato was speechless.

Pell smiled and put a friendly hand on the messenger's shoulder. "Oh, yes. We need a doctor sent here immediately. Thank-you, Paul."

With a nod of understanding, Paul Udo turned around and headed back down the hall that he had come, leaving Yamato felt like the shivers that had been going down his spine had caused his blood to freeze.

Moving seemed impossible, screaming seemed like it would shatter every bone in his body. All he could do was think the same thought over and over and over.

_What is happening?_


	9. Old Reliable

_**CHAPTER EIGHT**_

"Wake up, Doctor! Come on, rise and shine!"

Jyou lay in bed, the voice still calling to him and banging on the door. He'd had this dream many times, the one where some needy patient was banging on his door and he got to save their life. Ever since he was eleven and his father decided that the youngest Kido boy should become a doctor. Jyou's brothers knew what they wanted to be, and the combination of their father's pressure and his own indecision finally twisted his mind until Jyou decided that the medical profession was the right one for him.

"Hurry up! Open the door!"

Half of him wanted to open the door, but the other half knew that he was dreaming and the minute he opened that door, he'd be awake. Back in his cramped dorm-room with a paper to write and a test to study for.

"I'll break the door down, don't doubt me, I will!"

The voice made the hair on the back of Jyou's neck stand on end. It wasn't a needy patient, he knew exactly who it was and he hoped they were still there when he opened the door.

"I'm coming!" He called as he climbed out of bed. All of a sudden Jyou was hit with the sensation of tingling and dizziness, he'd stood up too fast.

"Okay, hurry up." A voice called from the door. Who was that? Jyou wondered, suddenly feeling overwhelmed and he held onto the wall to keep from collapsing. Where was he? This room didn't look familiar. The walls were made out of brick, a fireplace burned steadily in the corner. The bed he just got up from was a small cot, thin blankets laying dishevelled from him getting out of bed. A large woven rug lay on the ground, protecting his bare feet from the dirt floor and Jyou watched this, unfamiliar with everything. He entered the front room and looked, agape, at the shelves and shelves of books masking the same brick walls that seemed to be throughout the house. He pulled out one of the thinner books, _Human Anatomy, 3rd Edition. _Why would he have a book about human anatomy? He was no doctor!

As Jyou neared the door, aware of the constant hammering coming from the other side, he looked with awe at the shelves of fancy looking gadgets. He felt like he should know what they were, what purpose they served, but he came up blank.

"OPEN THE DOOR, DOCTOR!" The person on the other side of the door shouted, his banging becoming more furious.

Jyou knew not who it was by the sound of the voice, he knew not what they wanted, or why they called him Doctor. His name was Jyou!

Tentatively, he opened the deadbolt on the door, standing carefully behind it so not to fully expose himself to whoever may be on the other side. "It's about time! Ever since the town raids, riots and house-fires have started and everyone's installing locks on their doors it's making my job as your assistant a lot harder. You've always been a worry-wart." The alleged knocker mused, barging into the front door without turning to look at Jyou, who was still shielding his body from his houseguest. The man was looking through the fancy devices on the shelves, seemingly informing Jyou of something he felt he should have been excited about. But excitement was one of the emotions not on Jyou's mind.

"Prince Thirty-five has gone nuts. Fallen ill, the messenger said, but requires a mental and physical evaluation. So with my brilliant mind I have deduced he's crazy. Unfortunately for His Highness-To-Be, all the raids and such have sent most of the legitimate healers into the depths of the forest, a couple have gone certifiably insane, and one has even boarded up his home and he hasn't come outside in over two months. So, I was conveniently within earshot of the messenger, and I may have followed him to a couple of the abandoned healer homes, then may have convinced him about the ways of your Scientific Healing. At first he thought it was just some scam, but I told him how reliable you are and how you have studied under some of Orenda's most talented, or formerly so, healers, but took your own spin on it and invented your own methods. He was interested and told me you would be in the castle by midday."

Jyou didn't know what to say. So he _was_ a doctor? That explained the books and the fancy equipment, but wouldn't he remember these healers that taught him? Or even this man that apparently assisted him?

Jyou was about to oblige, although he wasn't sure how he could without the faintest knowledge of any of the gadgets he had invented, but then his assistant turned around and Jyou suddenly fell backwards, landing on his backside which caused a puff of dust and dirt to escape the rug.

"Sh-Shin?"

It was definitely him, it was definitely Jyou's brother. He hadn't seen his eldest brother in years, four, at least. Shin had gone to medical school in America and then went to Africa in order to help people who needed it most. More emotions filled Jyou. Joy, surprise, confusion. Mostly confusion.

Shin's face reflected this. "What's wrong with your shin? Please don't say you can't walk, getting in at the royal level might be the perfect way for your methodology to take off. Get up."

Jyou stood and used the door to steady himself as he closed it and refastened the deadbolt. "You, I meant your name is Shin." It was such an obvious statement, but at the look of confusion on his older brothers face, Jyou sighed. "Oh right, you changed your name to Jim to fit in better in America."

Still confusion. "Please don't tell me that this insanity thing has got you too. You know my name is James. You started calling me Jim when we first met, five years ago. You're Joseph, and I have called you Joe since you accepted me as your assistant. You were too young to be taken seriously, but too smart to not continue your venture. We've been a team for years, now snap out of it!"

What? Joseph? Jyou pushed his glasses up his nose, the frames bigger and lenses thicker than what he was used to. But- you're my brother!"

Shin, or the man who looked like Jyou's twenty-five year old brother, but had no recollection of being so, smiled. "I consider you a brother too, Joe. Now get ready, this is the best opportunity you've ever had!"

xxx

The journey to the castle was a long one. They had to pass through three towns on foot while carrying the case of medical equipment until they got to the outskirts of the town surrounding the castle. The workers village. There, the messenger that met Jim earlier would be waiting to take them the rest of the way in a carriage.

Jyou had been through enough with his involvement in the Digital World to know it was foolish to claim this was a dream, but this was not Earth. Nor was it the Digiworld, and although it made no sense, time travel could perhaps be an explanation.

The villages were straight out of movies about the Round Table, King Arthur and Camelot. Horse-drawn carriages, people dressed in 15th century garb, cottages with thatched roofs and cattle being sold on the street for coins.

He'd seen enough movies to know that in this time period anything considered weird was magic and anyone practicing magic was a witch. And if he was thought to be a witch, not only would his brother's doppelganger turn him in but he'd be tied to a rock and thrown off a cliff.

"Jim," Jyou started carefully, "I had a strange dream about… King Arthur."

"Who's that?" Jim asked, his strides even with Jyou's, a twinge of emotion filling the younger boy's mind, the last time he saw Shin, he was at least four inches shorter and half a pace behind his older brother at all times.

"Oh, just a figment of my imagination. There was a sword named Excalibur and these Crusades with a lion-hearted King Richard and a thief named Robin Hood who stole from the rich to give to the poor," Jyou began pulling as many stories he knew were based somewhat in truth, trying to see if any got some reaction out of Jim. "There were lots of witch hunts-"

"Why would someone hunt a witch?" Jim asked, a smirk on his face. "Every Orendian reveres magic. Witches are a rare breed, especially now in these hard times."

Jyou stopped. So, maybe he wasn't back in time. He was in another world altogether, Orendia or something? Time travel was a ridiculous idea, Jyou had done poorly enough on unfortunate Shakespeare lessons to know that he would not be understanding as much as he was if Jim was speaking Old English. "I told you it was a strange dream."

With a nod Jim agreed, "Maybe that's why it took you so long to open the door!" He nudged Jyou playfully and Jyou smiled meekly. It was like this was his brother. He looked the same, sounded the same, even teased Jyou the same way, but it wasn't him. It wasn't Shin.

When they met up with the messenger, Jyou took a double take. He wasn't older than Jyou but had a hard, stern face. He looked familiar, but Jyou couldn't place him. This was in another world, he reminded himself. His own thoughts and memories could be an illusion.

Jyou had never been in a carriage because of the mix of tendency for motion sickness, lack of opportunity, and a small fear of horses that had always been present, but confirmed after an encounter with Unimon, despite a bout of heroism.

_These horses don't shoot fireballs_. Jyou kept reminding himself, suddenly glad he was not speaking out loud, how insane that would have sounded to anyone besides himself! _They're big, strong, and could squish me on an impulse. But they don't shoot fireballs._

The two hours that he and Jim had spent walking was matched with a two-hour carriage journey. Although they could see the huge castle forty minutes before reaching the carriage, it didn't seem to get any closer as they travelled towards it.

The place was called Orenda, Jyou discovered after seeing a banner hanging a mile outside the entrance of the castle grounds. The long red banner had ornate gold script written across it, The Six Powers Guard Orenda. What were the Six Powers? Jyou decided against asking, he didn't need to be causing suspicion.

They were greeted at the palace doors by a large man with a beard. "You must be the doctor. I'm Kairo." He greeted, an accent on his words that the messenger and Jim did not have.

Jyou nodded and Jim came up behind him, cuffing him affectionately. "This is Joseph, and you are lucky you have found him."

"Don't let me down." Kairo said plainly. He let the two of them in, motioning the messenger to leave.

The stout Kairo led Jim and Jyou through the foyer, just as busy and bustling and some parts of the villages they had walked through earlier. As they ascended a spiral staircase the man began to talk, "He has been behaving oddly today. It started with loss of memory, forgetting simple facts that one should know virtually from birth. One of my officers was walking him up to his quarters and the Prince-to-be froze still, and didn't move for several minutes. Once my officer got him to snap out of his trance, he wouldn't answer any questions. Apparently he looked spooked, worried, lost. I'm not sure if it is physical or mental, but it would be in your best interest to have a conclusion before the end of the day. We can't waste any more time."

Jim began ranting to Kairo, telling him how successful Jyou was and his unorthodox but incredible methods. Although Jyou himself should have been listening to figure out what these methods actually were, he tuned both men out. How was he supposed to diagnose and then cure some prince when he wasn't even in medical school? He was nineteen and taking far too many science courses, pre-med ones, but unless all this prince had was a desperate need to name all his bones, Jyou probably wouldn't be of much help.

The staircase led to a long hallway, "This is where I stop." Kairo grunted. "You wait outside the door." He pointed to Jim and then motioned towards Jyou and then down the long hallway. "It's the last door on the left. Be quick."

Jim began protesting, but after Kairo told him that too many people would overwhelm the Prince-to-be, he nodded respectfully and gave Jyou a pat on the shoulder. "Good luck, Doctor."

Jyou's mouth was dry but his hands were soaked from sweat. He nodded and began walking down the hall. It seemed to be like the road to the castle, it looked like a manageable distance but every step brought him no closer. The dread filled his body. What if his lack of knowledge ended in him being beheaded? Or Jim? Jim was the one who was talking him up all day. This was not good. He was supposed to die in his early to mid-eighties, warm in his bed. On Earth.

Before he knew it, the door had somehow crept up on him. It was the last door in the hallway, as he had been told. The hallway ended with a glorious window, conveniently open as if it knew Jyou was coming. An escape route, if it came to that.

He turned to face the direction in which he'd come, Kairo had left but he could see Jim, made tiny by the distance, sitting on the ground anxiously.

Even if Jim wasn't Shin, they were somehow connected. Maybe he was still Jyou's brother, even if he didn't remember that he had taught Jyou to ride a bike, teased him mercilessly about everything from his awkwardness to his lack of girl-related experiences, and told him that it was not their dad's place to choose Jyou's future career, it was Jyou's. Jyou wasn't going to let Jim be beheaded because of his own stupidity. _Fake it until you make it_, Jyou thought of a saying one of his professors had once told him.

With a sudden wave of confidence, much like the one he had the day he faced Unimon, Jyou pushed open the door and saw a tall blonde boy staring out the wide-set windows in the room. The furniture was grand and the room even smelled expensive. The boy turned around and looked at Jyou who dropped his stack of medical supplies, both of their mouths fell open simultaneously.

"Yamato?"


	10. The Captain

_**CHAPTER NINE**_

Why did it feel like his bed was moving?

He remembered Devimon sending the seven of them in opposite directions, flying out on beds. He remembered having to sleep in the weirdest places, in a whale's stomach, caves and who knows what else. How did he _not_ have a fear of sleeping? He should be traumatized. But sleeping was nice, he pulled the blanket closer around him, vaguely aware that this was not the blanket that was usually on his bed. The he remembered the sensation of sleeping on that little rowboat, going back in time, or however it happened, to help himself learn to ride a bike. God, no wonder Takeru wanted to be a writer, the stuff that happened to them was not imaginable by some mere mortal.

Taichi opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. Not his. Instead of the white popcorny substance he used to chip off when he slept on Hikari's top bunk, there were wooden panels. What? Taichi rolled over, but instead of landing on the other side of his bed, he fell and landed flat on the wooden floor.

As the swear word left his mouth, he suddenly felt more dizzy. Where was he? Tai sat up and held his head, why did his head hurt? He looked above him, roughly four feet above his shoulder was a hammock. Had he slept in a hammock? Why weren't there any windows in this room? Why did he feel like he was moving?

The questions fuelled Taichi to stand up and push open the door, made out of the same wooden planks that the ceiling and walls were made of.

If he hadn't been seeing it with his own eyes, Taichi never would have believed what lay outside the door. Ocean. Miles and miles of bright blue ocean. He was on a boat. A ship, to be exact. It's sheer size forced Taichi's jaw open, he couldn't remember coming onto this ship, and he was positive he would remember something so… well, cool!

The sun dimmed as if it had gone behind a cloud, but as Taichi looked up to see the bright blue sky, untarnished by a single cloud. He looked behind him, and there, standing tall and proud, was a giant mast, at least twenty feet tall. But it wasn't the mast that was blocking the sun, it was the sail it was supporting. A black sail.

"Captain!" someone called in the distance, and Taichi looked around, eager to meet this captain. Black sails usually mean pirates, was he was being held prisoner and not supposed to be out of the hammock room? But if he was being held prisoner, he would probably be chained up in some rat-infested cellar with skeletons and corpses. Unless they were friendly, humane pirates.

God, he was stupid. Friendly, humane pirates? That would be like angry, hostile Kindergarten teachers.

"Finally you're up!"

Taichi jumped at the voice, "Please don't make me walk the plank!"

He turned around to see who had spoken to him. He was young, younger than Taichi at least. His blond hair was tousled and his pale blue eyes rivalled the sky above them. He was unshaven, which somehow didn't seem to fit with Taichi's mental picture.

The sight of him combined with who he had figured the guy to be, caused Taichi to fall over backwards and land in a pile of coiled ropes.

"Wallace?"

It was true, although Taichi'd never personally met the boy who had the renegade digimon partner that had trapped Taichi and the five other older digidestined in some cold, creepy alter-dimension.

"It's William." The blond corrected, holding out his hand and helping Taichi up. "It's a little early to be drinking, don't you think?"

That's it! Taichi was in some drunken stupor somewhere and this was just a very vivid dream. He had just watched_ Pirates of the Caribbean_ on cable last weekend and this was some revival of his suppressed thoughts. Why the hell was he dreaming of Wallace?

"Alright, Wallace, let's-"

Wallace cleared his throat irritably. "William."

Taichi evaluated Wallace. He looked pissed. "Okay, William, hmm, Wallace. Will…ace. Yes, we're going to compromise here. Willace, Will…is. Willis!"

With a dramatically elongated sigh Willis agreed. "Fine. Now are you too plastered to talk or are you manageable?"

Taichi shrugged. It was his dream, hopefully he'd be able to navigate it without being forced to walk the plank or get beheaded.

Willis sighed. "We need your input, under the influence or not." He began leading Taichi down the length of the ship, the dozens of other men nodding courteously to them as they passed.

So Willis was the captain. A weird choice, Taichi told his subconscious, sure, he was a strong contender, facing all the problems that Taichi and his friends faced together, alone. But he wasn't really a _leader._

"The ship from yesterday was a disappointment. The boys raided it last night and aside from a cook and two chambermaids there was no one. In exchange for information we let them go. You were right, it was a ship headed towards the Citadel and the surrounding town for the prince's ball. The girl escaped with her head servant on a small wooden escape boat, so we've been heading towards land. She'll know where the rest of the treasure is hidden, it should be about an hour until we reach land, Captain."

"Captain? Me?" Taichi grinned. This dream just got better.

Willis sighed. "Next time you're drinking, please save it for night time when I don't have to put up with you."

Taichi disregarded this. "Hah, Pirate Captain Taichi! So what does that make you? You're like… Smee!"

Willis assaulted Taichi was his eyes. "Smee?"

"Yes, you know, like Peter Pan! Smee was Captain Hook's right hand man!" Taichi doubled over laughing. "Which is funny because Captain Hook only had one hand, so a right hand man could come in handy! HAH! Handy… I crack myself up."

"I don't know what a Smee is or Peter Pants or Captain… Hook? So if you can get it together for a moment, we have to go through the stuff the crew did find in that ship before they set it sailing."

Taichi shrugged, "'Kay." He jumped up on the edge of the ship and with a hand tracing the railing, he began to walk along the edge of the ship like a child mocking a tight-rope walker on the curb. "So do we get in heated sword-fights with other pirates?" He mimed having a sword and jumping around defensively. "That would be so nuts!"

Willis sighed. "You're not taking this seriously. You know very well we lost some valuable members of the crew last week, we're avoiding confrontation for seven days in their memory."

"But that's so boring!" Taichi blurted out before an angry glare from Willis caused him to jump down from the edge and fold his arms. "But it's for a good cause."

Willis, his light hair contrasting his black pants and wine-coloured vest sped up his pace, leading Taichi down a set of steep steps and across the dimly lit dining room. "We got everything that could be of some value, no precious stones or anything but keep an open mind."

"Mind: open." Taichi said, almost mockingly. He walked across the dining room, ignoring the irritated looks from Willis as he tried out Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow behaviour.

"Stop walking with your hands like that," Willis snapped. "You look like a fool. Come on, it's just in here."

The doors Willis opened weren't like the cheap wood in the hammock room, but inlaid with gold and dark cherry-wood. Taichi was impressed with himself that he knew what cherry-wood was.

The room stretched out like the high school's gymnasium. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, swaying gently as the ship bobbed up and down with the waves. But it was full, wall to wall of everything- from furniture to paintings and clothes. There seemed to be an organized mess, it reminded Taichi of a more elegant and nicer Room of Requirement from the Harry Potter movies. He laughed at his dream's ability to take things from all the movie's he'd watched that week.

They walked past plush sofas and candelabras, Willis seemed to be evaluating each one. Everything looked, to Taichi, like it belonged in an overpriced thrift store. "There are quite a few nice paintings, we can sell them and I am sure they'll get quite a bit from merchants in the Art Districts. I think this ship is from the Textile District.."

Taichi tuned Willis out as he began rambling off about all the qualities that made him think this stuff was from the Textile District. For a pirate he sure wasn't very vicious.

"Arr!" Taichi growled as he passed a mirror. He laughed and then backtracked and examined himself in the reflective surface. His hair was the same, but he was unshaven and it stood out much more than it did on the fair-haired Willis. He was wearing similar loose pants with breezy shirt, with lighter colors. Blue and white. Weird, he never would have picked light blue pants for himself. _Oh well, _he thought to himself as he looked up to see a row of paintings. Fruit, a sunset and a basket of flowers. They reminded Taichi of the art classroom at school. He walked through the make-shift pathway that the array of furniture created. Huge dresses were lain over chairs and falling out of wardrobes. The path led to the far side of the room, Taichi stood on tip-toe and saw Willis sifting through piles of parchment from a desk. The brunet stepped over a stool and tripped, falling to the ground. He was sure spending a lot of time falling over today.

He rolled onto his side and looked in between a table and a bureau, standing up as he pushed the mass of dresses from obscuring his view. Oh, now his dream was channelling _The Lion, Witch, and The Wardrobe_. In between the two pieces of furniture he saw a set of painted eyes.

Intrigued, he slipped through the two pieces of furniture and his jaw dropped. Resting against the back wall was a huge painting, taller than Taichi's own six-foot height. It was a girl posed on a chair, a huge dark blue dress tied to her thin frame and the mass of skirts mistakable for a down-comforter that had been inlaid with gold thread and jewels. Her hair, falling in waves down her back and across her shoulder framed her perfect face and brown doe eyes.

A princess, undoubtedly. Taichi flashed back to his eleven-year-old self, seeing the huge white dress with pink bows and crown that Mimi had flaunted. She was always Princess Mimi, with or without the crown or tiara, like what she'd worn to her Welcome Home party, she had the disposition and charm and confidence. But here in the giant painting the girl looked different from the girl Taichi remembered. Her hair was longer, her face and eyes read some sort of loneliness, discomfort. But she was clearly someone who left radiated class, elegance and beauty. But the princess in the painting wasn't Mimi.

It was Sora.


	11. The Victim

_**CHAPTER TEN**_

She wasn't crazy! Hikari thought with a little too much enthusiasm as she hung up the phone. She was right! She was right when she told Koushiro that something was going to happen and it did. She was right this morning when she argued with her mother about the existence of an older brother. She was right. Sitting on her bedroom floor, her past yearbooks and photo albums sprawled around her, six people noticeably absent from places they belonged. She looked at the camera on her lap, the memory card that she had gone through with Koushiro, just yesterday, was somehow tampered with. There were still pictures of Udo and the other band members, but in the ones where Yamato should have been in was filled with blank space or another band member.

Hikari put her phone in her pocket and the camera on her desk and walked down the hall. The pictures on the wall were of her, none of Taichi. His room was filled with her mother's yoga equipment and a treadmill. Even his bag of soccer gear that lived at the front door was gone.

"Where are you off to? Yuuko asked her daughter.

As she pulled her shoe over her heel and looked at her mother with resentment to a crime that Mrs. Yagami had no fault in, Hikari scowled. "I'm meeting Takeru."

"Be back by dinnertime." Her mother responded with an oven-mitt and apron looking alien on Hikari's terrible cook of a mother. Hikari didn't even want to face the thought that Tai's absence had turned their mother into a chef. The yummy smell filtering out of the oven answered this question for Hikari as she opened and closed the front door behind her.

They were meeting at the soccer field. Ken and Daisuke's teams were having a much anticipated soccer game against each other, Miyako had requested that Hikari film it for her, but this seemed to pale in comparison to the problem at hand. They were gone. Taichi, Yamato, Sora, Jyou, Koushiro and Mimi. Apparently they had never existed in the first place. She was now an only child, and according to Takeru, he had the same news. Apparently Takeru's father had seemed like a completely different person too, married even. She decided discovering there was a possibility her mother was a good cook was laughable compared to Takeru's news, and that sharing it would not help their cause.

He was waiting there when she arrived. "Ken's team is winning." He said blankly. They both knew this was not relevant and was just a way to prolong the onset of pain that was going to come when they had to actually say the words out loud. Their brothers and their friends were gone.

A whistle blew, indicating the end of the game and several dozen cheers rang throughout the field. Hikari and Takeru stood by the curb, unmoving and not speaking to each other, but they mutually knew that they had to wait for Daisuke and Ken. The missing brothers would cause emotion in their decisions and the extra points-of-view could help.

"Hey, Hikari!" Daisuke called as he ran up to join them. "Hikari, maybe you should edit the tape, make it look like my team actually won. It'll surprise Miyako and make their relationship more interesting."

"I didn't film it." Hikari replied simply and Daisuke shrugged.

"Good. We can tell Miyako I won."

Ken came jogging up behind Daisuke and chuckled. "Nice try, Davis." Ken was the only one who consistently remembered that Daisuke was trying to change over to an American form of his name.

"Guess what, Hikari!" Daisuke exclaimed, ignoring Ken. "I'm team captain! I guess Taichi never showed up to his meeting this morning, the coach never said anything about it, he just gave me the captain's jersey and that was it! No one even congratulated me, like it was old news!"

Hikari squinted, relieved that at least Daisuke remembered her brother, but her brother's loss of the coveted position on their soccer team gave her the cue to relay the bad news. "Tai's gone." She choked out.

Ken and Daisuke exchanged confused glances, "Gone off the team?" Daisuke asked.

She shook her head and Ken folded his arms. "Gone like how?"

Hikari opened her mouth to speak but closed it instead, averting her gaze from any of the three boys.

"Gone like he doesn't exist anymore." Takeru answered instead. The words hit Hikari like someone had just kicked that soccer ball into her stomach. "None of them do. Yamato, Mimi, Sora, Koushiro, Jyou… they're just gone. Their own parents don't remember them."

"Do you have any idea where they are?" Ken asked, trying to be considerate of his friends missing siblings. "Is it… a Digital World situation?" When he mentioned the other world, he lowered his voice as if it would stop someone from overhearing.

"We don't know." Hikari said softly. "I was thinking maybe they somehow were sent to the Dark Ocean." Her gaze locked in Ken's for a moment and she knew he was replaying his memory of being trapped there, just as she was replaying hers.

Takeru put his hands into his pocket. "I disagree."

Hikari scoffed, _of course you do_, she thought.

"Remember when we were in New York visiting Mimi and she disappeared? She and the others were sent to another dimension, if you remember." He looked at Hikari's irritated face and Daisuke's uncharacteristically pensive one. Ken looked uneasy, he always did when they talked about their Digital World related experiences when he was still Emperor.

Hikari was tempted to say he was just bringing this up because it related to the story he was writing, but she didn't.

"Well, maybe this is connected. It's the same six of them that went, the six original digidestined. Not including Hikari and myself."

Ken nodded, "I don't know that whole situation very well, but it makes sense."

Hikari scoffed again.

"Stop doing that!" Takeru scolded. "Is it so hard for you to consider that I'm right?"

Hikari opened her mouth to speak, like she had earlier, but this time instead of stopping because of emotions, she stopped because Daisuke butted in.

"Hey, hey, hey now. No need to bring your domestic issues into this situation. Ever thought that you're both wrong? Maybe they're just stuck in the good, old fashioned Digiworld. Some creepy new bad guy is holding them captive and it's up to us to save them!" He struck a dramatic pose and Ken coughed to mask a laugh that Hikari caught anyway.

"I still say it's the Dark Ocean." Hikari said stubbornly.

Takeru shrugged, "Maybe. Or maybe Davis is right."

"What was that?" Daisuke exclaimed, his smile taking up the majority of his face. "Did you hear that, Kenny Boy? Takeru said I was right!" He said _Davis_ was right!" They all watched the ecstatic boy thrust his thumb proudly to his chest.

Takeru's phone vibrated, the noise catching all their attention as Takeru reached into his pocket to check it.

Hikari could see his phone, a blue screen indicating a new message with the name prominently displayed in the middle, almost laughing at Hikari with a snooty French accent.

CATHERINE

She was about to say something but Ken nudged her. His silent warning stopped her again and Takeru spoke, "Well, it's three o'clock." He said as he replaced the phone back into his pocket.

"How about we meet at my house tomorrow morning?" Daisuke asked, still beaming from Takeru's comment.

Three heads nodded in assent and Hikari opened her mouth to speak, holding it ajar for a moment-waiting for someone to interrupt or stop her, but instead, the three boys looked to her patiently. "What are we going to do? We have no plan."

Daisuke put his hands on his hips, "Well, as I am leader, I think the first step is for everyone to find their digivices and bring them. That way whatever we decide, we are prepared."

"By that you mean we're going to the Digital World." Hikari said bluntly.

Daisuke started to talk but this time it was Takeru's turn to interrupted him, "We haven't decided anything. We'll decide tomorrow. Until then we can think of ideas and we'll share them in the morning. Eight o'clock, Motomiya residence."

There were three nods of agreement, Hikari's was more reluctantly than the others, but still present.

They turned to go their separate ways. Ken towards the metro-station, Takeru towards his apartment and Daisuke in the opposite direction towards his. But Hikari stayed. She watched the last of the soccer players packing up their gear in duffle bags and walking away. Taichi should be there.

She shouldn't be waiting until tomorrow to save him. She should be doing something now. Now she was no longer the victim and Taichi was. All of them were. She was their only hope and if there was one way to step out of the victim shoes it was to slip into hero ones. Hikari slid her hand into her pocket and felt the weight of her pink and white digivice as she clutched it in her hand. She was going to do something even if she had to do it herself.


	12. Lost

This is a pretty long chapter and there's a few OCs introduced. R & Rs are as always, very appreciated. Enjoy! :)

_**CHAPTER ELEVEN**_

Koushiro had been walking for hours. The other people with him seemed to know what they were doing, so he pretended to do so as well. In reality, he had no idea where he was, who these people were, or what he was supposed to be doing. He remembered feeling vaguely lost and confused, but the moment he had spoken, everything just went blank.

They were in a forest. Koushiro couldn't recall if he'd ever been in a forest before, or even how he knew this was a forest if he'd never been in one. Or had he been in a forest? The trunks of the trees were as wide as Koushiro was tall, some ascended so high that they pierced the clouds. The ground was damp and the smell of pine and mud mixed together with memories that somehow Koushiro couldn't reach.

"We stop here." An elderly man declared as he rested his hand on a tree, bringing the other hand to the top of his head and smoothing out his thin white hair. "The rest of the team should be here within the hour."

Over the course of the day, Koushiro had noted that this man seemed to be the leader. It was his voice that woke them all up that morning, his footsteps they followed through the terrain, and his orders they took. Koushiro decided it was in his best interest, as he couldn't recall anything before that morning, to stick with this man.

"We're getting closer," The old man told Koushiro as the two sat on a log; it was actually a root from a tree beside them, but almost a metre in diameter, "I can feel it in my bones."

_Close to what?_ Koushiro wondered._ And what team am I a part of, exactly?_

He looked around at the other people on this "team". There were five of them, including himself and the old man. There was a pair of identical looking middle-aged men who appeared to keep to themselves throughout the day, as well as a bald man, or more appropriately, boy. He looked about Koushiro's own age and as he sat beside Koushiro, the latter realized his hair was very fair and cropped close to his scalp, so he was not in fact bald. All four of the men in his company seemed to have the same accent, their individual speech patterns slightly varying between one another, but definitely related in a manner Koushiro had never heard before.

"I appreciate you taking time out of your research to join us, Frizzy." The old man quipped up, his voice softer than it had been while he had been barking out orders, but tinged with some kind of diluted pain.

"Frizzy?" Koushiro asked, a slight irritation sharpening his speech.

The old man chuckled jovially. "I'm sorry, I'm terrible with names. I've always called you Frizzy, didn't mean offence! It's your hair, and I'm not about to call you carrot-top, as I, myself, sported red hair for the first forty years of my life."

Koushiro nodded and tried to fix his wiry mess of crimson hair, embarrassed for not remembering this man who seemed to be quite fond of him. "Frizzy, it is then." He offered the man a small smile, and got a toothy grin in return.

The log-like root that they were sitting on shifted upwards and Koushiro jumped off it. "Another tremor." One of the twins retaliated as if it had been nothing unusual. "Small one this time."

Koushiro sat in the dirt, his heart pounding as he stared at the log that contorted like a bending arm, then returned to its former place on the ground. An earthquake? No, it felt more fluid… why was he the only one on the ground? The old man, who had stood up as if it was more a nuisance than a shock, kicked the tree and returned to his spot on the root.

"Time and magnitude." The old man directed, and the second twin, without even looking up, pulled a pile of parchment out of his bag and jotted down some notes with a thin stick of dark chalk… charcoal? Who wrote with charcoal? For some reason that didn't seem normal to Koushiro, but nobody else seemed to find it strange. Nobody seemed to think Koushiro was out of place. Except Koushiro.

With a sigh, the red-headed boy stood up and dusted the dirt off his pants. Weird pants that he definitely didn't remember choosing. Whatever. Koushiro sighed before tentatively sitting back on the log.

"Hey, Baldy," The old man turned to face the fifth member of their group, "Motion ratios?"

The fair haired young man, Baldy, squatted on the ground and began sifting through the soil and small weeds that had been freed by the moving log. "Particles, as usual." The way he said it was with some sort of cocky boredom. Koushiro didn't like his tone, but figured that he must be smart, and Koushiro liked that.

Koushiro leaned over Baldy's shoulder to see that, in fact, mixed in with the usual compounds one would expect to find in dirt, was a sprinkling of light shimmery dust. Baldy stood up, rubbed the dirt into his light pastel coloured shirt and walked along the side of the tree root, until he was out of sight behind the tree it belonged to. "The roots are enlarged. There's been tremors here all day." He stretched, looking at leaves as if they were pages of a book attached to the giant tree. _He's smart_, Koushiro concluded. _But weird._

Koushiro, confusion making him lose interest in Baldy's leaf reading, looked around their small crowd. The second twin had taken out his parchment and charcoal again and was recording what the young member of their group was saying. They all seemed to have their roles. But what was Koushiro's? Aside from some research he had been linked to, but had no recollection of committing, he had no role. He had no memory of a role, nothing from before that morning came to mind, and even half of that morning seemed to be a poor quality silent film from the twenties: no colour or speech, blurred and with specks of dust and tricks of light disfiguring what could be somewhat recognizable. He was lost. Lost in a forest. Lost in this group. Lost in his mind.

"Professor Sein!"

The old man looked up and Koushiro finally labelled him with a name. Three cloaked figures trudged towards Koushiro's group, water dripping from the edges of their hoods and the tips of their pale fingers. Koushiro looked down through the trees that they had arrived through, more and more thick greenery shrouded any vision of an exit. How were they wet? Rain? A waterfall? Some other unexplained anomaly like moving trees or sparkly dirt?

"Right on time." Sein approved, giving each figure the once-over, clutching the wrist of the woman who owned the voice.

One of the people, the smallest of the three, removed her hood and a grin grew across Baldy's face. The makeshift rain-jacket released a veil of white-blonde hair, thin and pale, almost translucently so. The girl gave a polite nod to Sein, the twins, Koushiro and finally Baldy.

Her hair and slender body paralleled that of Baldy so Koushiro's assumed he and this addition to their group must be siblings. However, her peculiar beauty wouldn't release Koushiro's gaze, and it appeared the affect was the same on the other four men present. Her snowy complexion and wide-set gray eyes contrasted the tanned and brown-eyed Baldy. The similarities were no longer siblings, but perhaps that of a strangely beautiful race.

"It's been quite some time, Baldwin." She said, her voice like a tiny wind-chime; beautiful but fragile at the same time, the same accent woven through her few words.

Baldy's voice was broken and soft, as if he couldn't figure out what emotion to relay. "Tevy." He managed.

Sein smiled his toothy grin and nudged Koushiro. "They're from the same town, Peri. Tiny town, tiny people, but beautiful. And smart. They're all very into nature, figures as Baldy is the expert on all of Orenda's plant life and no one knows more about animals than Miss Tevy."

The way Sein spoke Tevy's name was with a vague reverence, even though she could be no older than sixteen.

"I thought you would be going to the prince's ball." Baldy said softly, his gaze so intent on the tiny girl that the other people present must not have been anything more than a blur to him.

She shook her head, not returning Baldy, or Baldwin's, intent gaze. "My life is better spent using my knowledge and talents in practical situations. I'd rather spend my days trying to save our world through my knowledge being in a palace holding the prince's royal hand."

This seemed to be profound, as everyone in the group went silent with awe for a minute. Breaking the silence was the second figure, the tallest of the three, but not the voice that announced their presence.

"It's never happened before," a strong feminine voice began. She did not remove her hood, but Koushiro watched the woman, not quite middle-aged, but her eyes saying that she had left girlhood many years ago. Her dark brown, easy-to-mistake-for-black, hair was in a braid hanging out of her cloak. "-Someone denying an invitation to a royal ball. In all my years of studying the history of people in Orenda, as far back as such events are recorded, every invitation sent out has been matched with a girl in attendance. Miss Tevy is quite the phenomenon. Especially in this, the year with the greatest response to the prince's ball."

He hadn't noticed it until she was well into her speech. Koushiro was too focused on putting together all the pieces to the puzzle that he almost didn't notice that this woman didn't have the accent that everyone else spoke with. Even the slight changes between the accent of the two fair-haired Perians compared with the heavy one of the twins, or the elongated version Sein used, they all had it. Holding letters longer than they should, emphasis on strange syllables and the pattern of enunciating and then slurring alternate words, each one of them spoke with it.

Except this woman.

Koushiro leaned forward to get a better look at her face, as her long dark braid and silhouette of worn eyes and a straight nose didn't give much of a full picture.

"I don't believe we've met." She suddenly said and Koushiro jumped, feeling embarrassed that he had been caught examining this woman's face. "I'm Ari."

As she turned and held out her hand, Koushiro felt as if someone had suddenly squeezed his spine. His posture changed and he was momentarily frozen, he knew her from somewhere. Visions poured into his mind: a woman in a suit walking down a crowded hallway, spinning on a chair in a cramped looking room, fixing her prominent square-rimmed glasses.

But who was she?

Sein cleared his throat, "This is Frizzy, he's the best of the best. Certifiable genius, his research on the disasters has been crucial to our project."

"Izzy?" The third woman spoke, her hood still shielding her face, sitting beside Sein. "Haven't heard that one before."

"It's _Frizzy_," Sein corrected. "Like his hair."

The cloaked girl laughed, and the hair on Koushiro's neck stood up. "I always knew him to be Koushiro, but Izzy does suit him."

Sein opened his mouth to correct her again, but stopped as she removed her hood.

There she was.

As if the sight of her face were the paddles used on a flat-lining patient in a hospital, everything started coming back to Koushiro. He wasn't flat-lining anymore.

The crowded hallway was his high school. The cramped room was the school psychologist's office, and the woman with the square-rimmed glasses was the same woman sitting on a rock in between the twins and Sein, thin wire glasses replacing her designer ones and her always-down hair, plaited.

Dr. Hisami.

Koushiro was throbbing. The blood was rushing to his head too fast and his head felt like the hull of the Titanic must have felt moments before falling beneath the Atlantic's surface. His hands were twitching and there was a definite urge to pass out. Where was he? Where were his parents? How did he get here?

"Izzy?"

Then he remembered her. His hands weren't just shaky now, they were sweaty too.

"A-Amy?"

It was her. The girl Koushiro had begged Yamato to talk to for him, the girl that he stared at for the seventy minutes in each of the two classes that she shared with him; hoping that his History teacher with teeth like they hadn't been brushed since the textbook was written or his overweight Math teacher would, for some ridiculous reason, pair them together. She looked like Snow White, shoulder length ebony hair, cream skin and delicately blushed cheeks. She looked just like she always did, replacing the hair-bands and school uniform with the cloak and some sort of long dress. But it was Amy. No accent, just the same voice he listened to answer all the questions in History class.

And then he felt ridiculously creepy.

"Since when do you call me Amy?" she asked, a teasing smile forming itself on her lips.

Koushiro folded his arms to stop his shaking hands. "Yesterday." He said bluntly, sounding more like a primitive caveman than the _certifiable genius_ Sein claimed him to be.

Her words, still light and playful, questioned him, "Koushiro," she was worried. "We haven't seen each other in four years."

No, he saw her yesterday. She had dropped her pencil and he had dashed halfway across the room to grab it and give it back to her. He'd even managed saying her name to get her attention. She had replied with a simple _thank-you_, but even that sounded prettier when she said it.

"F-four?"

Amy nodded. "And you always called me Amunet. Never Amy, no matter how much I insisted. No one even calls me Amy anymore. You're not as talkative as I remember. And you never wrote me back."

Sein, seemingly enjoying his _Frizzy_ getting told off by a beautiful girl grinned. "How do you know him, Amunet?"

Amy looked at Koushiro expectantly, as if waiting for him to quip up and tell the story. Somehow Koushiro didn't think his recollection would be the same as hers.

Disappointed, Amy continued, "We were the top in our class. Skipped ahead, two years. But after final year, I wanted to go and study Orendian Mythology so I moved to Eutalia to live with my sister and continue learning, and Izzy was accepted to apprentice with Professor Nettez,-"

"My old friend." Sein interrupted.

"And I haven't heard from him since." Amy finished, staring straight at Koushiro. Through the single year Koushiro had known Amy, the new student at their school, he hadn't seen this emotion. It was a mix of regret and grieving, with a dash of contempt.

As much as he wanted to believe this was Amy, the Amy he sat behind and memorized the way she raised her hand, how she paused before answering questions in class, how she signed her name with a heart for an 'M', this was not her. This was Amunet.

But, God, she was just like Amy.


	13. Storybook Princess

_**CHAPTER TWELVE**_

Sora tried to organize her thoughts as she trailed several paces behind the girl in front of her. They had been running from something, someone for hours. The sun was starting to set and although they had paused for short breaks, the small winding village paths were rough on her feet. She'd ditched her shoes around noon, and now her dirt covered feet were mistakable for chunks of raw meet covered in mud. And blisters.

xxx

When Sora had woken up she'd felt weird, not just because she'd slept on a thread-barren cot in some abandoned hut, but because she didn't know where this hut was, or what she was doing in this hut. Then she saw her reflection. Her dress, full and elegant, stuffed with crinoline and actual petticoats. It was tied at the back, lacing her tightly into the heavily beaded emerald-green bodice. But aside from the huge dress, was her hair. Her too short to attractively pull back, too thin to braid, was now long. Like the Repunzlesque, down-to-there, waist length hair she'd always wanted but never had the patience or hair growth capabilities to achieve. It was braided down to her waist, the long plait falling out around her face where she noticed a small necklace-like ring of jewels woven atop her head.

There had been a knock on the door, and Sora remembered as she spoke, everything was suddenly erased from her mind. She was a blank.

The terrible feeling of emptiness was short-lived, however, because as the door opened, and Sora saw the girl that opened it, everything came back to her.

The girl was wearing a similar style dress, albeit simpler and without the fullness in the skirt. The pale blue color matched the color in her eyes, and the simple gold ring she wore around her little finger matched her flaxen curls, casually loosened and reaching her mid-back.

Catherine.

She'd never met the girl personally, but stories of the French Digidestined child had occasionally circulated through their group. Takeru and her were especially close, much to Hikari's chagrin.

xxx

"We can stop for another while." Catherine spoke, her words affected by her thick French accent. She hadn't yet told Sora why they were running, her responses consisting of words hurrying Sora along and haphazard explanations, like _"They are fast," "They won't stop until they catch us both,"_ or Sora's personal favourite, _"Demons of the sea, the blood running through their veins is indisputably colder than the coldest ice on the northern mountains."_

Sora sat down, eager to take the strain off her feet and although sitting on the ground in this small unpopulated village wasn't the La-Z-Boy chair she yearned for, it was a welcome feeling. Sora watched as Catherine did the same, bunching her long shirt together to make an improvised cushion. "We should arrive by tomorrow evening if we continue this pace." Catherine mused as the redhead massaged her own foot, the dirt and soot rubbing off onto her palm. Sora had figured out this was not the real world, or at least _her_ real world. This was some Digital World experience, although she was nearly sure this was not the Digiworld either.

And to add to the mystery, not only were they running from something, but they were running to something else.

"It's a shame we left your dresses on the ship." Catherine sighed. There had been frequent mention of a ship, the two of them, and many others, travelling together, but Sora had no recollection of it. Before this morning, her last memory was falling asleep beside Yamato.

Matt. Sora's face fell. She wondered if he was stuck in this strange alter-dimension too, or if he had woken up alone in her own bed and had been worrying all this time about her. Sora half hoped that he was in this world with her, but it seemed like danger was much easier to come by here, than in Sora's room.

She nodded absently in response to Catherine's comment. The only dresses she actually owned was one that was undoubtedly too small with a bow and polka dots, and one Mimi made her buy for Yamato's first out-of-Japan concert.

Sora had tuned Catherine out, the French accent making her run-together ramblings much harder to understand, but it was beautiful, so when Sora attention resumed to Catherine, she smiled and nodded.

"It's so romantic." Catherine sighed. "Maidens coming in from all reaches of Orenda to go to the ball see if they fall in love with the Prince."

Sora suddenly perfectly understood Catherine, the weight of what she was saying made her words crystal clear. "Like in Cinderella? I'm one of these girls? This can't happen! Oh!" Sora stood up, ignoring the sore pulsing in her feet. "This is wrong… the only ball I'm supposed to go to is the masquerade one at school next week. Matt's supposed to pick me up and I still have to get a dress from Vivienne and Hikari and I are getting together to make masks…" The words tumbling out of her mouth seemed to fall onto the ground and trip her. Sora landed on her knees and without looking at Catherine, she stared at the dirt under her hands. The dirt rubbing her fingertips and now dusting through her long braid that had fallen over her shoulder. This whole digital world experience suddenly darkened. Each world had a purpose. They had to save the digital world from Devimon, The Dark Masters and the like, the world Takeru was copying into his story was to help a lost digimon find his partner… What was the purpose of this world? It wasn't playing dress up anymore. What if she got married to some man from another world? What if she _did_ fall in love with this prince?

"No." Sora said softly. Sitting up and dusting her hands on the front of her dress. She was in love with Yamato. She would solve whatever problem this world shoved at her. Like some role-playing game on the internet, it was just a very life-like puzzle.

Catherine put a light hand on Sora's shoulder. "Are you alright, Sora?" Blue eyes met auburn ones and before Catherine could offer any more comfort or Sora could respond to her unlikely companion with more than the nod she offered, an unruly shout rang from behind them.

In a quick blur, Catherine pulled Sora up, still clutching the girls hand, began to run.

Sora had not the time, nor the breath to ask Catherine what was going on, but as the shouts got louder and seemed to be closing in on them from every direction, multiplying as they did so, Sora suddenly had no desire to ask questions. She just ran.

The city streets grew narrower and narrower, splitting and dividing into alleys and into small archaic versions of housing complexes. Children ran in the streets, their parents closely behind them. The abandoned city behind them was no longer, and they were suddenly surrounded by people. Running grew more difficult, it suddenly became a matter of gripping Catherine's hand and navigating through the web of people, some towing children, others towing carts. It was a scene straight out of some medieval movie.

"In here!" Catherine gasped, yanking Sora's arm into a darkened archway.

Gasping for breath and clutching to the shadows, both girls sank to their knees. "Who were they?" Sora managed between pants.

Catherine shot Sora a quizzical glance. Her was chest beating up and down violently with breath and her corseted shirt was loosening from wear. The blonde finally answered, "Pirates."

At first Sora laughed. "Pirates?" From what she knew of pirates, cheesy movies and cartoons, fear was not the emotion she went to. She'd once been a pirate for Halloween, the unnamed creatures she thought she'd been running from suddenly didn't seem as scary as she thought. Maybe a tribe of assassins or angry rabid monsters? But pirates?

The look on Catherine's face seemed to darken with Sora's sudden joviality. And suddenly Sora realized. The ship. The running. The dresses. She was the loot. She looked at the ornate gems woven through her bodice with glistening gold thread and felt the beaded jewels clinging to her hair. "Pirates." It finally sunk in and her face shifted to reflect Catherine's.

The shadows suddenly shifted and Sora's heart leapt. The archway was not big, it reminded her of a small bridge to get over a stream, The one painted in the pages of her story books. The three Billy Goats gruff, each having to get past the troll.

But this, as much as her mind argued, was not a fairy tale. There was no stupid troll. There were pirates.

As if her mind hadn't painted a vivid enough picture, a cold, thin sheet passed along her neck. The light slanting through the entrance reflected off another across Catherine's. A small scream escaped from the blonde and Sora jilted. Swords across their necks. Beheaded. Words, nonsensical and alarming flitted through her mind like lightning-bugs. The reflecting light off the sword transverse across Catherine's neck lit the outline of the man holding it to her throat. Unshaven with tattered clothes, his blonde hair wrapped in a scarf, a sly smile pursed through his lips. "Pirates." Sora whispered. Silently plotting her plea for life, not knowing if the degree of ferocity these pirates held, made such an idea futile.

"Yo ho!" her own assailant whispered into her ear and the hair on the back of Sora's neck stiffened. She lifted her hands, shaky to the blade crossing her neck and pushed it slowly away. At first unsure, Catherine gasped and did the same, falling to her knees and sobbing as the blonde man stepped back.

"Are you sure about this, Captain?" He said, his voice softer than Sora would have imagined, but steady and strong.

The voice behind her, Sora still not able to face him, chuckled. "Yeah, I am."

With that Sora turned around. Her fiery braid adding to the fury in her burned-copper eyes. He smiled and dropped the sword to his feet. "Hey Sor!"

She was frozen. Not in fear or some undecipherable confusion like she'd felt with Catherine, but rage. She held her hand up, and with more passion and force than she'd hit any tennis ball, she slapped Taichi across the face.

"Ohh." He groaned, catching his balance on the archway wall. "Touchy!"

Sora, still speechless, stared at him. More rugged than she'd ever seen him, even the few weeks after they'd broken up, unshaven and not showered, she stared at him. But there was no sadness like there had been three summers ago. He was happy. He was there.

Suddenly, emotions changing like a traffic light, Sora began to snivel. "That was horrible, Yagami."

He stared at her, suddenly aware that she hadn't seen the joke, the lightness. He grabbed her shoulder, waiting for a slap or a snarky remark to stop him, and when none came, he pulled her in.

Her knees buckled, and she tumbled towards the ground, Taichi didn't let go as he came down with her. Sora leaned her head onto his shoulder and a shaky sob escaped.

It wasn't that she missed him. The natural musky smell of his skin or the feel of his arms around her. It wasn't that her emotions were heightened after running and being scared half to death. It wasn't even that she wished he was Yamato, holding her, stroking her hair and telling her it would all be okay.

Everything was suddenly real. This wasn't a medieval time storybook. This wasn't a game. This wasn't some Digital World adventure that would end with promises of reconfigured digimon and a bundle of memories. This was as real as her life back home. With pirates and Cinderella balls and princes.

And she had no idea how to get out.


	14. Lonely or Alone

_**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**_

The air that filled her lungs was thick and warm. She knew she was awake and that it was futile to try and go back to sleep now, but she kept her eyes closed. She reached for her duvet, wanting to roll over and wallow in her feelings for a few more minutes before either she fell back asleep or her aunt came in to wake her up.

It was not just the fact that she couldn't find her duvet that startled her and caused Mimi to open her eyes in a panic. Her aunt! Mimi remembered dropping Jyou off after their driving lesson and then getting back to her aunt's apartment. She remembered making herself hot-chocolate and settling down onto the couch to watch TV. She remembered her aunt getting home from work while Mimi was getting ready to have a shower, and just as she was brushing her hair, she thought of her butterfly clip. Her most favourite accessory. Mentally retracting her steps Mimi had decided it was probably at the beach, so she waited for her aunt to get to bed before deciding her own car was still drying off in the underground parking, so her aunt's car was the next best thing.

Mimi remembered the drive. She remembered her favourite song had played twice on the radio and she remembered how the roads were almost empty and the glowing 11:00 on the car radio. She remembered that she parked and ran down the steep hill until she got to the sand. She dug forever, her hands raw from the wet sand, the rain pouring and the lightning. But she didn't remember finding her hair clip. She didn't remember driving home. She didn't remember going to bed.

She sat up and looked around her, a foggy glow prevented her from seeing clearly but she felt sand underneath her hands. Did she fall asleep on the beach? Jyou would not be pleased to hear that she had done something that she predicted he would call reckless and unsafe, typical Jyou words.

Mimi's body felt unnaturally light as she tried to stand up, losing her balance and preparing herself to fall down on the sandy ground but she did not. She floated. She pressed her thumb on top of her ring finger and flicked her finger forward, watching curiously as bubbles escaped.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw something move. She turned her head quickly to catch it but saw nothing but the murky fog. Again the same shape crept up again and as she turned her head to catch it, again it fled. A third time she saw it, but did not turn her head. Instead, she reached her hand behind her and grabbed it, only to realize it was her own hair. Floating?

The sand. The bubbles. Her hair floating and looking picturesque like it did when she was in the swimming pool. She was underwater!

This didn't make sense. Mimi wasn't holding her breath, although her instinct was to do so after she figured out where she was, she soon let herself breathe. The thick air filling her lungs was not air, but water. She waited to start coughing and sputtering like she did when she drank water too fast and it would go down her windpipe, but it did not happen. The salt that she could taste on her tongue did not burn her eyes or her lungs as she breathed it in. Had she turned into some strange underwater version of herself? Mutated into a Digimon?

The murky water, a product of her moving around in the sand, slowly cleared. She could see a metre in front of her, seaweed flowing in much the way her hair did. More water cleared and she could see six feet in front of her, coral formations, colourful like the ones on cartoons or the 'before pollution' pictures on documentaries. Then all the sand settled and she could see for miles. It was beautiful, like some painting. The water was blue-green, there were rocks of every color that Mimi imagined rocks could be. She could even see fish swimming by her, none like any she had seen before.

When the beauty of her surroundings registered, Mimi bent her head back and looked at the surface. It was quite a ways up: twenty, maybe thirty feet. The whole thing felt so weird, and although Mimi knew she should be scared, she wasn't. It was quiet, but she didn't mind. She felt safe.

Safe because when no one was here, no one could leave her. She had this whole ocean with fish and beautiful plants that she could explore like it was a department store in New York City. But there was no one here to break her heart. No one to get her hopes up and proceed to destroy them. There was a difference between being alone and being lonely, and the latter was unbearable.

She thought of Jyou, hoped he was safe. She thought of Sora, her best friend. Half of her missed their girl talks and sleep-overs, but another part of her was furious. Sora was more fun when she liked Taichi. Mimi'd never ever tell her that, but the red-headed girl had become obsessed with Yamato, almost like one of his screaming fans. Part of Mimi's reasoning was based in a tiny crush on the blonde she'd fostered during the last couple years. But he thought she was psycho. Too immature, as she'd once overheard. That day had crushed her crush, so to speak, but she always had a soft spot for that boy.

Taichi was too… _Taichi _to notice any of Mimi's hurt feelings. He was oblivious, part of the reason Sora had chosen Yamato instead. And then there was Koushiro. Izzy. Stupid, insensitive, jerk faced Izzy. He wasn't her normal type, Everyone had said that when they started going out. She knew it, he knew it, the whole school knew it. It was nice for a while, but he would say things, she would cry, and he would leave so she could "get it out" alone. They fought. They fought more than army men, Takeru once said. She knew her friends hated it, they had all chosen sides and that had strained more relationships than just hers and Izzy's. So they broke up and hadn't had a decent conversation since. But Mimi hoped he was okay too.

This wouldn't be so bad. She could swim to her heart's content, get lost in the ocean and her thoughts. She didn't need anyone. It was too hard to be left, so this was the peaceful alternative. She wished them all the best, but this was what she needed. To be alone with herself instead of being lonely amongst people.

Maybe when she was over this and had found peace with herself, she could go above on the surface and find a handsome sailor and they could live together in an underwater castle. She didn't know if she could pass her new superpower onto anyone, but for the moment, she didn't care. Alone was nice.

Mimi wondered what she was, a Sea-Maiden maybe, a witch? Somehow had she tapped into some ancient digimon power? No matter, Mimi decided. It was time to explore the ocean. Her new department store. Her new home.

She was still floating, weightless. With an uncertain arm she pulled herself forward, a weak half -front crawl. She moved forward. She did it again and moved even farther. This was easy. She got comfortable and began spinning, using her hands to pull her forward and sideways around the water. She felt like she did at the beach yesterday, free. Dancing on the sand was nice, but dancing in the water was better. Quiet. Graceful. Magic.

She stopped mid-spin and looked above her head, the light from the sun reflected on the surface and shone beams of light into the water, making the ocean twice as beautiful as it had just been. Mimi decided she would look above the water and see what was around her, but as she made the motion to kick, she couldn't.

She hadn't used her legs yet, Mimi noted. She tried to kick again, but it felt weird, like her legs had been bound together. Mimi looked down, and illuminated by a beam of water-distorted sunlight where her legs should have been, was a lime-green mermaid tail.


	15. Ken's Choice

A/N: I have gotten quite a few comments on how I am portraying the characters, so I wanted to elaborate on this. Like probably most people my age, I went through the Pokemon obsession phase in my childhood, and when Digimon came on, I thought they had just misspelled and mispronounced the show I watched everyday on YTV at 3:30. As it went on, Digimon became my new favourite. Among the many things I liked better, one of the most notable: Digimon's characters are 3-dimensional. Tai and the others grew up through Adventure and Adventure 02, not only in age, but emotionally. They progressed as people through their journeys. Although, some can argue that Ash matured throughout the show, I didn't notice it to the extent I noticed with the Chosen Children. So although Digimon is over, I like to believe while they maintain their core-character traits (Tai's stubbornness, Sora's maternal instincts, Mimi's... Miminess, Joe's cynicism etc) they still are growing into adults. My goal with writing this story is to have the same characters, have them portray their personalities we all know and love, but versions of those personalities that are maturing and growing through the years and events they encounter.

/end rant

I've changed the rating to Teen just because of something I'm planning for a future chapter, and it's always better to be safe than sorry. Thank you to all the great reviews last chapter and I can't wait to read more =)

As always, I hope you enjoy the chapter and I appreciate any and all feedback =)

_**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**_

Its grip around his neck tightened. Each thread woven together to make this noose seemed to relish the pain it caused the boy, his pale skin reddening under its tug. Each second of pain turned into improvised hour long episodes of questions. Why was he subjecting himself to this?

Ken gasped, and then loosened his tie.

Even the former genius couldn't comprehend why mankind would invent such a pointless garment. But this is what men had to wear at weddings, particularly their girlfriend's sister's wedding. Said girlfriend's sister, Chizuru, had phoned Ken last night, saying that Miyako was extremely wound up and the other bridesmaids couldn't deal with the girl who Chizuru claimed needed _a temporary distraction_.

For a woman that had lived with Miyako for sixteen years, Chizuru should have known that her little sister was always wound up. The only way to counteract this was have her fall asleep. Ken chuckled, that wound up crazy girl was all his.

The glowing red numbers on Ken's clock told him that he had half an hour to get to the train station. After a three hour train ride, in his suit and tie, no less, Miyako's future brother-in-law would pick him up and bring him to the rehearsal dinner. Although this was not how he wanted to spend his Friday, and then his Saturday, it had been two weeks since he'd seen Miyako and the occasional text complaining about her bridesmaids dress or the incompetent groomsmen, caterers or service-person of the moment, wasn't what Ken really wanted to talk about.

They were missing, apparently. The older Digidestined. Ken wasn't notably close to any of them, with the exception of the occasional soccer-related conversation with Taichi or computer-related one with Koushiro. But Miyako was. She adored Sora and idolized Mimi. She and Koushiro had so many inside jokes that Ken had felt a little jealous on occasion and Taichi was one of the only people in their group that could snap her out of one of her moods. Her iPod's Twenty-five Most Played was seasoned with Teenage Wolves songs and she had an almost fangirlish respect for Jyou.

The fact that they no longer existed would break her.

Of course, Ken knew that tomorrow he would not be at Daisuke's house like he had promised, but Hikari was enraged. Not like normal dainty Hikari-anger, but rage reminiscent of Miyako back in his Digimon Emperor days. Crossing anyone with Miyako-anger was never a probable action for Ken, so after an expletory text to Takeru, the most rational of the existing Digidestined, Ken felt he was in the clear.

Except he knew he'd have to spend the greater portion of his train ride scripting how he would break the news to Miyako. At first he thought against telling her, letting the others take care of it and when they'd come back on Sunday night and he would play along with not knowing, and she would be none the wiser. But once Daisuke's big mouth and Hikari's uncharacteristic anger factored in, he knew it would cause more trouble than a slap on the face like he'd gotten in Primary Village years ago.

His next option was breaking it to her after she'd had a couple drinks, weddings had drinks right? But he'd never seen Miyako drunk and he guessed the exuberant girl was not a cute, graceful drunk. Another slap in the face was foreseeable.

The third one he'd thought of consisted of sitting her down, holding her hands, starting with "I love you" and ending with "Even though they're gone, I'm still here and I still love you," with intermittent I love you's throughout the conversation. This seemed the most likely, until Ken remembered Chizuru. If a wound up Miyako was causing troubles, emotional, broken Miyako would not go over well. Ken was still trying to get the Inoue family to like him, and ruining the eldest daughter's wedding was definitely not the way to go about that.

Ken zipped up his duffle-bag, halfway through, he decided to switch his dinner jacket for his sweatshirt.

"Fifteen minutes, Ken, Honey." Ken's mother called from the other room.

As if it had been echoing his mother, Ken's phone vibrated. A text. He looked to see who it was from. Miyako wasn't supposed to know he was coming, Chizuru claimed that the surprise would be half of the sedating her sister plan. The picture on the screen was not the one announcing Miyako being the person who texted him, the picture she had him retake sixteen times until she had settled on an acceptable one, (although he thought they were all fine), but the one of Hikari. The smile and demure wave that Ken had got on the first take, infuriating Miyako that the younger girl didn't even have to try to be photogenic, made the hairs on the back of Ken's neck stand up. She was not smiling today, she was the infuriated one. This would be an infuriated text, Takeru probably let it slip that Ken was leaving town.

Not wanting to invoke anymore conflict between Takeru and Hikari, or himself and Hikari for that matter, Ken closed his phone and dropped it into the outside pocket of his duffle bag.

With a heavy sigh Ken pulled at his tie tucked underneath his sweatshirt. "Please phone me when you get on the train. And when you arrive. And when Chizuru's fiancée picks you up!" Ken's mother said as she pulled her son into a tight hug. "Be careful, Ken."

At first, Mrs. Ichijouji had been completely against the trip. But she loved Miyako, despite the fact that when the two had first started dating, the girl had terrified his mother with her ongoing chatter. But after she had offered to come help the Ichijoujis paint their kitchen last summer, they had grown close.

Ken felt the vibrate from his phone through the canvas of his bag. This time a longer vibrate announcing a phone call. It wasn't Miyako, she couldn't phone since her minutes usually ran out after the first week every month. It was probably Hikari.

Ken's mother sat back down to the table and stirred her tea. Behind her, the curtains framed a stormy sight outside. The formerly beautiful day, just two hours ago, had dramatically changed, not yet rainy, but dark and windy.

"I hope it's not another storm." Ken's mother whispered. "I'm having a bad feeling, Ken."

"I'll be fine, Mom." He finally spoke before opening the door to leave the apartment. "Love you."

"I love you too, Ken. I'll tell your dad you said hi and bye, when he gets back from work!"

Ken nodded and smiled before heading towards the elevator. His mother, overprotective though she was, wasn't the only one having a bad feeling. He really hoped the others could fix this without him. They had done fine before he joined the team anyway. The elevator chimed, announcing the main floor.

The tiled foyer was slippery from mud-painted footsteps. Ken slipped slightly but caught himself. Falling and breaking his neck wasn't going to get him to Miyako.

The cold wind chilled Ken the moment he opened the glass doors. He could feel his phone vibrating again, silently apologizing to Hikari as he started walking towards the train station. Three blocks to go and it looked like it was going to rain any second.

Sure enough, even before he had left the apartment building's property, the rain started. Not slowly and escalating, but an immediate downpour.

"Ken!"

Ken looked behind him, not seeing anyone and brushing off the sound as a trick of the wind and rain. He pulled his hood up and dug his hands into his pockets. It was gonna be a long evening.

"Ken Ichijouji!" He heard again, and unless the wind was extremely good at enunciating, Ken was sure someone was calling him.

Sure enough, sprinting towards him and splashing up puddles as she did so, was Hikari. The water spraying up from her feet made her look like a speedy cartoon character, creating smoke as they ran.

"Why are you ignoring your phone! I texted you and then phoned you twice!"

Ken stared at her. Hikari wore the same outfit she was wearing earlier, her yellow turtleneck and jeans, with her pink pea-coat. "Sorry, Kari. I have to go, I know you'll find Taichi and the others but-"

"Where are you going?" Her face hardened, the rain bouncing off her hood added to her cartoon-like anger.

Ken pointed vaguely in the direction of the train station. "Miyako's sister's wedding. The train leaves in like five minutes Hikari, I have to go."

"Take the next train. I need your help." Ken looked at her, the anger had subsided and now she was pleading. "Please. Takeru won't listen to me and he's got Daisuke on his side. I know I'm right, I just have a feeling."

Ken sighed. He looked at his watch, there was no way he could make it to the train station in four minutes. "Fine."

xxx

As Ken opened the door to let Hikari into the apartment, his mother grinned. Not only was Mrs. Ichijouji happy to have her son home, she _adored_ Hikari.

After an explanation to his mother, sporadically interrupted by offers of tea, cookies, and hot chocolate, Hikari and Ken headed to his bedroom. "So what is it?" Ken asked irritably, ending the silence between the pair of them that had lingered all the way through his building.

Hikari, sitting cross-legged on Ken's floor, looked away, at first Ken thought she was avoiding his gaze but then he clued in that she was staring at his computer. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her digivice. "You wouldn't have known, but the computer that had the main gate to the Digiworld was the one at our junior high school. Koushiro later figured out how to access the gate from any computer. Which is what you already knew how to do, evidently. But after Blackwargreymon, you know," she made a vague hand gesture, like an explosion, "All the gates kind of… closed, or something. It became harder to go back and forth between the worlds, but we could find certain gates that worked. Like Koushiro's laptop always worked, probably because it always had a tie to the Digiworld… travelling there with us and all, and I'm guessing the one at the school still works."

"So what, you want to go to the Junior High School computer lab?" Ken asked, irritably.

Hikari paused, her eyes darting between Ken and his computer. "No..." She answered, her voice trailing off, leading Ken to conclude that she was trying hard to ask him something but couldn't find the proper words.

She suddenly found them, but as she began speaking, Ken noted that each word seemed to be padded with cautiousness. "When you… first went to the Dark Ocean-"

Ken stood up and closed the door. "No, Hikari. I don't want that. I'm done with that part of my past. No more dark or black or evil. Ocean, rings, spirals, spires, anything. I've come to peace with it all, I just don't want to talk about or relive any of it."

"Ken, I'm not asking you that! I just want my brother back!" Hikari's fists clenched together and the words she wanted to spit at Ken seemed to stop in her mouth.

"Hikari, I said no!" Ken tried to make his voice final. He didn't want to help anyone go back to a place that had nothing good about it. It even said in the name, Dark.

"Wouldn't you do it if you could get Osamu back?" Hikari retaliated, her words acid.

Ken held his breath. His tie seemed to be choking him alongside Hikari's words. "I can't get Osamu back. He's dead. Taichi is in the Digital World or the Dark Ocean. There's a difference." His tone was steady and even, he stared straight into Hikari's eyes and the look on her face read the same thing Ken thought. He hadn't spoken that way since the days when he carried a whip. "Hikari, you can't ask me to go back to the Dark Ocean."

The rain pounded on Ken's window. For being just after six o'clock, it felt like midnight. "Please Ken. You don't have to go, I think your computer is the key to the Dark Ocean. Just like the one at the school is the key to the Digiworld. Just let me go."

What she said made sense. Osamu's computer was how he got there in the first place, with his Digivice. Ken looked at the drawer where he always kept it. The same place Osamu put it.

"Fine, go." Ken obliged, but the look on Hikari's face made Ken sigh. He couldn't let her go alone. Miyako would be devastated if she lost her best friend and it would be Ken's fault. Plus, the wrath of Takeru was much more foreboding than the wrath that Ken had been expecting from Hikari twenty minutes ago. "We'll go. But I don't know if it will work."

Hikari nodded at Ken, her gratitude was tarnished with a solemnity.

His digivice felt indigenous to his hand. Like it belonged. In his hand, his pocket, not his desk drawer. Ken turned the computer monitor on and as soon as the desktop loaded, the wallpaper of him and Miyako begged him to reconsider. Send Hikari on her way and catch the next train. But he couldn't. Somehow he felt like he had to go, he couldn't let Hikari go by herself.

Hikari held her pink digivice up to the screen. Nothing happened.

The background image of Ken and Miyako outside on the terrace smiled back at them. The monitor holding the image of bright sunlight, blue sky, green trees and two wide smiles seemed to be the window to a world of opposites. The black-gray sky outside with angry winds and pouring rain reflecting Hikari's sombre face and Ken's conflicted one.

"Try yours." Hikari directed.

Obeying, Ken gave an apologetic nod to the smiling image of Miyako before holding up his black digivice and wincing at the eerie gray light that emanated from the computer screen, pulling them in.


	16. Real or Not?

_**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**_

Both boys sat in an uncomfortable silence. After the immediate adrenaline rush of seeing each other wore off, suspicion and uncertainty set in. Yamato watched Jyou, or the guy who may have been Jyou, toy with the gadgets that were in the package he'd brought with him into the room. The tall bespectacled youth sat cross-legged on the overly quilted bed, looking more awkward and doubtful as the moments passed. Although that definitely seemed very Jyou-ish to Yamato, he couldn't be sure. He awarded the unknown stranger a mental point in the Real Jyou category.

"This is ridiculous." The older of the two muttered. "Yamato, it's me. Jyou Kido. I've known you for years."

Yamato, still unconvinced, folded his arms and leaned against a boldly painted wall adjacent to the bed. "Prove it." He replied coldly.

Jyou sighed, "Your name is Ishida Yamato. You're eighteen, have a brother named Takeru. We spent a summer in the Digiworld and helped the younger kids a few years later." He paused, gauging Yamato's expression and then continued with an impatient huff. "Sora's your girlfriend. You're in a band called-"

The abrupt halt in Jyou's speech was what caught Yamato's attention more than the rest of the boys drabble. "What?"

"That's who it was…" Jyou concluded under his breath.

Confused and still sceptical, Yamato took a careful step closer. "Who?"

Jyou looked up and let his dark eyes meet Yamato's blue ones. "The guy I saw, the messenger. He's the guy from your band. Why is he here?"

This statement brought Yamato's guard down more than any other statement Jyou had spoken. "You saw Paul too?"

Jyou nodded. "He met Shin and I in town,"

"Shin?" Matt asked, alarmed. "As in your brother we haven't seen since Apocalymon?"

Jyou nodded, hesitantly and then changed the motion into a shrug. "I mean… Jim. It's not really Shin… like I'm assuming it's not really the same… Paul either."

Yamato scoffed. "Of course it's him."

"Cause he recognized you, right?" Jyou asked, but the sarcasm in his voice changed the meaning of his question. Sarcasm… definitely a point for Real Jyou.

Yamato shook his head but before Jyou could retaliate any I-told-you-so statement, he added, "He's brainwashed or something, This has to be some sort of Digital World test for us, maybe he's a new Digidestend and we have to find the evil Digimon that's behind all this."

Jyou was still, evaluating Yamato's explanation and shook his head. Yamato wasn't used to convincing Jyou of these existential situations, usually the older boy was going off and ranting very paranoid-like about all the potential less-than-likely things that could happen. A point for Jyou-doppleganger was added to the mental score sheet in Yamato's head.

"But everything is different." Jyou rationalized. "Shin… or Jim as he is called here, doesn't know me as a brother. I'm his boss. My name is Joseph. His is James. In the real world, our world, I haven't seen him in years. I get the annual Christmas and birthday card with intermittent letters. This version of him sees me every day. I haven't seen Shin every day since he lived at home and I was thirteen. Matt," at the use of Yamato's nickname the mental tally disappeared. This was Jyou, and at this point he was the only person he could fully trust. "I know you want it to be your friend… but it's not. I'm no Koushiro, so I can't ramble off theories about what could be going on, but I just know it's not him, just like the Shin sitting out there isn't really my brother. It's just you and me. And hopefully the others, somewhere."

Yamato was silent, tasking in everything. What Jyou was saying made sense. As much as he didn't want to believe it, it made sense. "So what do we do now?" Yamato asked Jyou softly, suddenly overly aware of the potential of the room being bugged with some weird ancient technology. Or a guy standing behind the huge draping curtains and cautiously peeled back the curtain closest to him to reassure himself. No one was there.

Jyou shrugged. "Well, you're the prince." He laughed weakly and continued. "I'll tell everyone that you remember falling out of bed last night and had some… subdural trauma. I'll reassure them it's temporary so you have to keep up appearances. Don't ask questions, just nod and smile."

Yamato did so, mockingly and Jyou scoffed. "Good work, Your Majesty." He contemptuously bowed and the two boys chuckled. "I can't think of any excuse to stay, and I can probably find the others better if I'm out in town… so if anything happens…" Jyou described how to find the little brick house he had apparently woken up in that morning. Yamato listened and although Jyou's directions were terrible, especially since Yamato had no idea what lay outside the walls of the castle, beyond the views his window gave, he painted a faint blurry picture in Yamato's mind. He doubted he could get there quickly on foot, maybe he could steal a horse from the royal stable? Assuming there was one.

When Jyou was finished his weak description of the village roads leading to his house, Yamato sighed. "Do you think the others are here somewhere?"

"Yes." Jyou said with confidence. "I mean, no offence, but there's not much importance to you and I just being here. Alone we're pretty average, but all together, we're-"

"Superheroes." Matt finished, a smile appearing. "Apparently there's a dance, well, a ball, so maybe I'll be seeing Princess Mimi."

Jyou chuckled and nodded. "Queen Kari. Maybe Sora will be a seamstress or something."

"What about Taichi?"

The older of the two pursed his lips as if he was trying to pull the reins on a smile. "Do you have a court jester?"

Jyou released the reins and his smile turned into a full-blown laugh. The suddenness of this laugh and the vision of Taichi with his mess of hair in a jester hat brought a smile to Yamato's own lips, which too, evolved into a laugh.

"What's going on here?" The door opened to reveal Pell, frustration and confusion contorting his round face. Behind him Yamato could see Shin, older than the last time he'd seen Jyou's brother, but it was definitely him. Or… not him? _This whole doppelganger thing is freaking confusing_. Yamato thought to himself.

"He had… head trauma." Jyou blurted out standing up as if he was a soldier being called to attention, sounding less scientific than how he'd rationalized it earlier. "He fell out of bed last night so… he was suffering… um, slight memory loss. He should be better after a peaceful night's sleep."

Pell looked behind him at Shin and then at Yamato who nodded. "He was telling me this and I just thought it was so foolish that this happened so close to the big day so we had a good chuckle about it." Yamato was almost surprised how easily the lie left his lips. By the expression on Jyou's face, so was he.

"Is that so?" Pell asked, the anger leaving his face. "Well, your services are appreciated, Doctor."

Pell motioned 'the doctor' to leave and Jyou, being… Jyou, missed the hint. "Have a safe journey home, Doctor." Yamato urged. Trying to apologize and plead and a million other things using his eyes. But Jyou was definitely Jyou and missed every single one. Except, luckily, the cue to leave.

"Oh, my pleasure." Jyou stood up, his case toppling over and the contents littered the ground. Yamato bent on his knees to help him replace them all, quickly and messily as a child would when told they could watch TV after cleaning their room. "_Pell _will lead you out." Yamato added, trying to assure Pell of a false sense of superiority that Yamato had over him and Jyou, as well as inform Jyou of the curly haired soldier's name. Maybe Pell could help him become official court doctor?

After all the tools had been replaced in Jyou's case and Pell had motioned both Jyou and his brother's look-a-like, he gave Yamato a curious stare, but waved it off and closed the door behind him.

Yamato sighed and jumped backwards onto the bed. So Jyou was accounted for, now all he had to do was find the others.

He was prince? Couldn't he order all boys named Takeru to show up to the castle? Or all headstrong athletic guys with ridiculous hair? (Assuming he wasn't the jester) Or cancel the ball except for Princess Mimi and any friends or staff she might have with? Yamato hoped Mimi would get the hint and presume that meant Sora.

But Pell or Kairo might catch on and wonder what he was doing. That he wasn't really the nephew of an influential member of the Orendian round table. He was practically an alien. That wasn't going to be a very adequate lead in for his crown acceptance speech. And if they found out, what would happen? Would they behead him? Would they track down all the people that have experienced some sort of memory loss and couldn't recite the Orendian National anthem and torture them?

For a world where he ruled over every person in every town, Yamato had never felt more powerless.


	17. The Bad News

_**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**_

Takeru stretched out on Daisuke's bed. Last year when he and Hikari had been on an especially long break, (he never admitted that they been actually broken-up for a couple months,) he had found out that she had spent days just laying on this bed beside Daisuke. _They hadn't done anything_. Hikari told him over and over, and even though Daisuke gloated constantly, he too admitted that Hikari hadn't let anything come of it.

But where the hell was Hikari? Miss All-Up-In-Arms was all for doing something to get Yamato, Taichi and the others back, so why wasn't she here? And where was Ken? Usually if he missed the train or was going to be late he called.

Maybe that's who Daisuke had been on the phone with. For the past half hour?

Oh wait- Ken was visiting Miyako. Takeru remembered quickly glancing at an apologetic text from Ken yesterday afternoon and replying… something. He probably didn't want to tell the over-emotional Hikari or the hell-bent-on-being-leader Daisuke that he was boycotting their meeting. Coward. So far the attendance was pitiful to their Plan-A-Plan-Of-Action-Meeting, as Daisuke had dubbed it.

"Can I get you anything Takeru?"

Takeru followed the voice, Jun, Daisuke's slightly frightening older sister had her head sandwiched between the door and the frame. He had been tentative around her, even more so since Yamato and Sora became official. But admittedly she had been handling herself slightly more sensibly since she'd been pining for Jyou's brother Shou. Daisuke had explained this more toned-down version of his sister as the "wanna-be mature Jun who thinks she has to be sophisticated and graceful to compete with all the college girls that Shou knows." While Daisuke found it ridiculous and Jyou thought it was a little akward, Takeru just found it funny.

"Oh, no thanks, Jun-"

"Go away!" Daisuke barked at his sister. He slipped into his bedroom and closed the door swiftly in her face.

He was quiet for a moment, until footsteps leading down the hall were audible after his sister's incredulous scoff.

"You want the good news or the bad news?" Daisuke asked as he sat on the floor beside Takeru's feet, shrugging of the look Takeru was giving him.

The latter, feeling he already knew what the bad news was, replied, "Good." He predicted the good news encompassing the E.T.A of Hikari or, even better, this was all some bad dream and Yamato was asleep in their father's apartment. But they never had it that easy.

Daisuke winced. "You were supposed to ask for the bad news first. Everyone does that. You ask for bad news so it really sucks but the good news makes it better!"

With a sigh the blonde obliged, "Okay, bad."

"Ken ditched. I just called his house to see if he was on his way but his mom said that he left last night to go be at Miyako's sister's thing."

"What!" Takeru gasped, trying his best to feign surprise and glad that his only company was Daisuke. The cheesy gasp wouldn't have fooled anyone else.

"Oh no, that is not all! Apparently Hikari went with him!"

"WHAT!" Takeru stood upright, alarm straightening every muscle in his body. This proclamation put his fake one to shame. "Are you sure?"

"That's what Ken's mom said anyway. Good news, I got the number of the hotel." He held his hand out and Takeru read the numbers off his sharpie-inscribed palm, punching them into his cell phone.

xxx

"Hello?" Finally a familiar voice. After being redirected from room to room like some sort of verbal game of hide-and-go seek, Takeru sighed. "Miyako!"

"Takeru? This isn't really a good time…" There were female voices in the backward and Miyako shrieked. "THAT HURTS!"

Takeru winced and pulled the phone away from his ear. "Sorry Takeru! I'm getting my hair done. Actually getting my scalp _assaulted_!" Miyako barked, her voice still loud enough that he could easily hear it from a foot and a half away from his ear.

Daisuke sidled closer to Takeru and took the phone from him. "Miyako, it's Davis. Where's Ken and Hikari?"

There was a pause and another more volume sensitive exclamation of pain. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Ken and Hikari! You know, two kids with the same haircut? One's way too sensitive and likes to wear pastels and the other is a fifteen year old girl?" Daisuke asked, laughing at his own joke which Takeru disapproved of with a glare.

"How am I supposed-OW! STOP JABBING ME!- to know?"

Takeru took the phone back from Daisuke. "Miyako-"

"IF THE CURL DOESN'T FREAKING WANT TO BE PINNED THEN LEAVE IT DOWN, DAMMIT! STOP DIGGING THESE WEAPONS INTO MY HEAD!"

Takeru sighed, ignoring the irreversible damage to his hearing that he was probably going to suffer. "You mean you haven't seen them?"

Miyako scoffed. "No, hold on- this phone-cord is getting all twisted, okay, how would I have seen them?"

"So, they're not there? You're sure?"

A light sarcasm entered Miyako's voice, "Oh wait, no you're right, I totally overlooked the fact that my best friend and my boyfriend were sitting right beside me. Of course they're not here Takeru. What's going on?"

"There was a muffled voice in the background and after Miyako's response, she covered the receiver.

"God, our lives are so complicated." Daisuke sighed as he flopped backwards on the bed.

There was motion on the other line and Miyako came back on, her voice suddenly quiet and worried. "Apparently Ken never came. Another bridesmaid just told me that he never replied to the texts my sister sent, so they thought he changed his mind at the last minute. They never knew Kari was coming. What's going on?"

Daisuke, too far away to hear Miyako's under-volume voice read the conversation from Takeru's face. Takeru read his in return.

"It's a long story, Miyako, get back here as soon as you can, okay?"

Part of her voice was begging for more explanation, the rest understood that this was likely not an over-the-phone conversation.

"Okay, I'll try my best."

Takeru sighed. The information was swelling in his brain. Ken and Hikari decided to go off and look for the others on their own. The time they needed to be a team most of all was when everyone decided to split off and do this alone. Well, if that was how Hikari wanted to go about it, two could play at that game. "And bring your Digivice."

This was kind of a short chapter, but I hope you enjoyed it :) I decided Miyako is a fun character to write, since her emotions are so polar: everything is magnified tenfold! So as always, thank you so much for reading and any comments are very appreciated =) Oh and a random side-note: if anyone has YouTube or tumblr accounts, and would like to add me as a friend, message me and we can exchange account names! :)


	18. What They Had

Thank you once again for all the kind comments :) I was thinking of answering them here this time to switch things up ;)

Dreams on Wings: Thank you :) Haha I have Iori coming up in a couple chapters, I actually skipped ahead and wrote that one awhile ago, but it doesnt fit it quite yet... but it's coming =) And Miyako is such a great one to write =)

Still Not King: No worries =) Thank you! I appreciate that, I think the different facets of their friendships and relationships is one thing that makes them all so interesting, because if you think about it... if it wasnt for the whole Digiworld situation they probably wouldnt be friends in the first place because they are all so different!

Sweet Cari: Thank you, she was fun to write =)

Melodisz: Thank you so much =) That means a lot because I really enjoy writing! I thought it would be a cool idea to base the whole premise in some little minute-long scene that happened in one episode in 02, because in the show they don;t really explore that beyond the Digiworld and the real world, not even the Dark Ocean is explored to the extent that it could have been! And don't worry about your English, in my opinion it means that much more that you try :) So rant away ;)

I didnt think I'd finish this one in time (I try to update once a week) but I just sat down and just kept typing till it was done =) I also had apple pie for breakfast... so this chapter could potentially be the result of guilt over a bad dieting choice and a sugar rush :P So here it is, hope you enjoy it, and as always, Comments or PMs are always appreciated =)

* * *

_**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**_

"You still mad?" Taichi asked Sora as he trailed behind her. She ignored him. For someone six inches shorter than him, anger sure fueled her pace. It was hard to believe she had been hugging him and sobbing into his shoulder mere hours ago. And reminding her of this fact only seemed to encourage her wrath.

At the thought of Sora's wrath, he rubbed his cheek. That woman sure had a mean slap.

Walking back to the ship was taking much longer then it had to find Sora in the first place. Willis had explained it, complete with many judgmental stares and frustrated scoffs, that they were breaking every single rule in the hypothetical pirate rulebook, or something along those lines. They had gotten the whole crew, _his_ crew, Taichi mentally gloated, to scour the towns until Taichi had spotted Sora and her, then unknown, accomplice in that crowded town. He and Willis, Willis being Smee and the only one in on his plan, sent the rest of the crew members back to the ship while they got Sora and her lady, surprisingly Catherine, to bring them back as "prisoner". Willis warned Taichi that he'd have to come up with an explanation to why Sora wasn't beheaded and all the secret locations of the multitude of jewels she owned as their next destination. But Taichi doubted that Sora would know any of that anyway.

Catherine and Willis were walking slowly, it was weird that Mr. Pants-on-Fire earlier today had turned into Sir Stroll-in-the-Park. Seeing Catherine was weirder than seeing Willis. (Or Wallace, although the new name seemed to be sticking.) Taichi had actually personally met Catherine, in Paris back when they had to send all those Digimon back to the Digiworld. He'd kissed her on the cheek, he and Takeru, although it hadn't meant anything to Taichi as he was still a little volatile after Sora... well, that whole situation. But he was pretty sure something had started between Takeru and the pretty French Digidestined. He hadn't really put much thought into it, self-pity and a secret loathing for Yamato filled his every thought, but now that his mind was a little clearer, he could see how, to Taichi himself, Catherine was just a pretty foreign girl, but Takeru always stared a bit longer, smiled a little bit bigger, was even a bit sadder when the cheek-kiss ended.

Factoring Hikari's feelings for Yamato Jr., Taichi shook his head, this was going to get too messy for his liking.

"I woulda thought Mimi would have been the princess." Taichi said a little louder than he intended.

Sora stopped and turned around, her green dress and long braid following her action seconds after, emphasising it like slow motion would. "What's that supposed to mean? Only Mimi could be a princess? And Hikari is Queen Kari? Miyako is practically married to Ken so she's the Digimon Empress! Why can't I be the princess for once?"

Tai stared at Sora, this is the most she'd said to him all day… actually, probably for months. He couldn't remember the last time she'd spoken like that to him. It was weird. He could always tell when she'd put a lot of thought into something she said, she almost always did. That was one of their biggest differences. He never did.

"Digimon Empress?" Taichi asked, a chuckle escaping through his words.

Sora let out a frustrated sigh and turned back around and continued walking. Willis and Catherine were catching up, and they probably would grow suspicious of Taichi and Sora conversing about people when they were supposed to have never met before. Although Willis had been suspicious when Taichi had been so eager to find her. And bring her back alive. Taichi was about to tell Sora that he practically saved her life, but he managed to restrain himself.

Sora was pulling at the beads on her dress and tracing the threads with her finger. She was fidgeting. She always fidgeted. It was her nervous habit and he thought it was funny. He used to watch her and then she would notice that he was watching her and she would stop, embarrassed. Taichi wondered if Yamato did that.

Gross, he didn't care if Yamato did that. Of course not.

"I saved all your asses in the Digiworld." She said softy, almost whispering. "Some, multiple times. I never asked for thanks. I just want to be remembered, I just want to be special. Mimi acts like a spoiled brat and she becomes Princess Mimi. Hikari has the crest of Light and she gets a whole to-do trying to find her and then she explodes in a bright light around a bunch of Digimon and they call her Queen Kari. Miyako falls for some guy who used to take a whip to all our friends, I know we've all forgiven him and stuff, but she's practically the Digimon Empress by marriage. They are practically married."

"You said that." Taichi corrected nonchalantly. "You don't need to be a princess or a queen or an empress. Overrated, I hear."

Sora grabbed her braid and twirled the loose hair at the end around her fingers. She was making the face that she made when trying to stop herself from smiling. He hated that face.

He lifted his chin in her direction, a half nod. "Cut your hair, Takenouchi."

She stuck out her tongue. "Shave your face, Yagami."

Taichi laughed, admiring the reflection of his starter-beard in a nearby dusty window. He stroked the bristles mockingly with one hand and nudged Sora with the other, "Nah, I look so ruggedly handsome. You totally dig it. Don't deny it."

"Yes I totally _dig_ having my face feel like a cats scratch toy. Yamato always shaves."

Taichi scoffed. Of course he did. "He probably can't even grow a beard. Shaves the first Monday of every month just to say that he can." He hadn't even mentioned her having to feel his beard with her… face. That was definitely her addition to the conversation.

Sora made the face again. "You're just jealous."

"Of who? Yamato? Don't see him with his own ship and crew and really cool sword. Nope." Taichi took his sword out of its leather sheath and flipped it around in the air, catching it perfectly.

"You're crazy." Sora scoffed.

Taichi shrugged, stopping to look behind them, almost thirty paces where Catherine And Willis were talking softly. The goofy smile on his face made Taichi shudder. "He totally digs her."

Sora sucked in the side of her cheek. She made this face when she was thinking about something. Taichi hated that he still knew all of her little facial expressions.

"How can you tell?"

Taichi shrugged. "Look at his face. He looks like an idiot. That's how you tell a guy likes a girl."

"He's just smiling," Sora said, confused. God, for a girl who thinks she sees everything, she was pretty blind. "But she likes him. Look how she touches his arm."

Taichi looked, Catherine punched Willis lightly in the arm. "She's hitting him! "

"It's an excuse to touch him."

Taichi looked at Sora, her uncharacteristic long copper hair folded into a long braid didn't suit her, but everything about her was still so Sora. Her tiny nose and wide auburn eyes, square shaped face that he always thought was so unique. Her little fidgeting motions like playing with her dress and her braid. He shook his head.

"You used to do that to me, punch me like that." He hadn't meant to say that out loud, but he was half-glad. He wanted to know what she would say.

She looked up at him with a facial expression he knew perfectly. Hurt. Sorrow. A tinge of pissed-offness.

"Not now, Taichi."

"Then when, Sora? It's been like four years, I'm still waiting for an explanation! Like I don't care that you're together! I just want to know what was wrong with what we had?"

Sora began walking as Willis and Catherine started catching up. Probably another conversation that wouldn't be entirely appropriate for them to hear.

"Look, Tai, we were never _together_." She avoided his eyes and began her swift pace again.

Taichi scoffed. "Pretty sure we were, for like three years. You even admit that we broke up. You can't break up if you aren't together."

"But whenever I brought up being your girlfriend, you said," she deepened her voice in a weak imitation of him. One that used to be a party trick of hers that everyone else found hilarious. He never saw the likeness but thought it was cute. That was when he used to let himself think she was cute.

"Why put a label on it, Sor! What we have is great!" Sora stopped and returned to her normal voice. "Yamato had the balls to put a label on it. That's it. You and I weren't good. We fought all the time and we weren't fighting for a relationship, because you refused to admit we were in one. We were just fighting. I'd rather fight for someone who I know is still gonna be with me the next day. That's called commitment, Taichi. I hope you figure that out before you meet a girl who truly wants to be with you. We broke up because what we did have ended. I was done. And I'm done with this conversation."

Taichi stopped. It was like she'd reached into his lungs and yanked out all his breath. "W-well at least I can grow a beard." He shot.

The fact that his weak attack at Yamato was all he could muster brought a small chuckle out of Sora. "I think this conversation is over."

"I won't bring it up again if you… cut your hair." Taichi said with a proud grin on his face. He loved her short hair. Well, when he was allowed to love things about her. But Yamato liked girls with long hair, even Taichi knew that. That's why Sora had been trying to grow it out for the past couple years. That's why she kept fondly playing with it now. She was fidgeting and she loved having the hair to be able to fidget with. She finally had what she thought he wanted. She would never cut it off for Taichi.

Sora grabbed the end of her braid and held it straight out like a giant orange arrow pointing to her head. "Fine."

"W-what!" Taichi, taken aback, "You're serious?"

"If it will shut you up, sure."

Taichi scrutinized her face. There was no trace of the averted gaze he knew to look for when she was lying. No trace of the quivering hands aching for something to busy themselves with when she was nervous. No sign of the corners of her lips turning up when she was joking. She was serious.

Without asking again, Taichi took the sword from the leather casing and held it, resting it on the length of Sora's braid. "Fine." He said plainly. She closed her eyes and held her breath. Taichi swung the weapon gently, severing the braid and then resting the blade on her shoulder. She opened her eyes and he held them in his for a moment as her braid fell to the ground. Neither of them broke their gaze as her hair swung into place just below her jaw.

"You gonna shave your face now?" She asked, the corners of her lips turning upwards.

Taichi smiled and he replaced his sword in its case. He scratched his chin. "No way, man."

She chuckled lightly and proceeded to walk without saying anything further. He followed, stepping over her long copper braid that lay on the ground.


	19. Stop and Fast Forward

Taiora-AAML-Serena-Darien: Thank you! :) Hmm well I pictured it like walking through town, but they are headed towards a beach so that works just as well ;) That's the best part of reading, everyone has their own mental picture of what's happening! Yay literacy! :D

Still Not King: Thank you! I tried to get that out there because I don't think Sora voiced a lot of things throughout the show so I wanted to do it for her!

Sweet Cari: I definitely agree. I think lots of girls are too passive but I always picture Sora being stubborn in relationships, at least from what I gathered from the show.

Melodisz: I always loved Taiora too :) But I have respect for a lot of pairings and I'm trying not to give away my favourites till later on ;)

It's been awhile! I apologize for the lack of updates, but Christmas is pretty hectic over here and there's quite a few things I need to get done before the end of the year so this has kind of taken a backseat for a little while. Anyway, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and 2010 was a great year for you :) I finally have the whole story plotted out, I always knew how I wanted it to end but now I know how I'm going to get there. I was kind of indecisive about rating, I started at T, but I don't really swear and the violence was pretty minimal, so I changed it to K+. Due to some future chapters I changed it back to T, just thought I'd share that (probably pointless) story with you ;) ANYWAY, if I don't update again before the 31st, I hope everyone has a great New Years and here's chapter 18 =) Reviews are always appreciated, or even just comments on how you think I'm doing :)

Enjoy =)

* * *

_**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**_

Seven hours. That's how long ago Miyako found out the Hikari and Ken had high-tailed it out of this world and decided to run off to the digital one. An hour after that, she found herself up beside Chizuru's fancy arch holding her bouquet and her racing-mind blocking out the whole ceremony. She couldn't focus on anything. Not how perfect her sister looked, or agonizing over how her sister had managed to pick the ONE shade of purple that made Miyako look like a fluorescent eggplant. (And of course this was the colour of the bridesmaid dresses and every single accent in the whole wedding.) No. Miyako was focused on how Ken was supposed to be there. She hadn't known before those seven hours, but the fact that he was supposed to be absolutely sank her heart. He was supposed to be sitting in the uncomfortable pews and looking darn-adorable in a suit. He was supposed to spend the whole night at the wedding reception unwillingly dancing with her and blushing like crazy when Miyako _inevitably_ caught the bouquet. But no. Because during hour three, Miyako apologized to her sister and spent the next four hours in the passenger seat of a car with a half-drunk groomsmen driving her back to Odaiba.

So now, entering hour eight, Miyako stood in front of Daisuke's apartment. She was starving, tired, and still shaken up after the numerous "close calls" in the car with the questionable driver. Wishing for more than the light Pashmina scarf that Chizuru insisted be the bridesmaids only jacket over her unflattering violet halter dress with the ridiculous rhinestone-encrusted gathers at very unflattering locations that Chizuru had insisted upon. Silently cursing her sister, Miyako felt her head tilt from the weight of her hair. It felt like she was wearing a marble-statue helmet similar to Medusa's snake hair, but the reflection in the Motomiya's nameplate showed that, in fact, her hair was still the curly up-do with the one-hundred-and-six bobby pins and enough hairspray to destroy a good twenty-four percent of the ozone. Miyako knocked. Daisuke's apartment was silent.

Once Sora had told her about how when the older kids had first gone to the Digiworld, it felt like they'd been there for months. Days had passed, they had changed as people and just so much happened that it felt like they had been there for close to a year. But when they got back, it turned out that they'd only been gone for minutes. Time passed differently.

That's how Miyako felt. Except it just felt like time had stopped altogether and she was moving through it, slowly and with a twisting pain in her stomach and a uncomfortable jabbing weight in her scalp, but she was the only thing moving.

Had they left without her? Voices from inside seemed to negate this thought as Daisuke swung the door open. "FINALLY!"

Miyako noticed Daisuke's sister sitting on the couch nearby, filing her nails. "Another one of your friends? Takeru's been here all day!"

Ignoring Jun, Daisuke led Miyako into his room and sat down on his floor beside an empty bag of chips and a glass of juice, it seemed he had been sitting for quite awhile. Takeru lay on Daisuke's bed, staring at the ceiling. He lifted his arm to offer a greeting towards Miyako, which she returned in much the same manner.

After summarizing her situation, leaving out the part that she had almost been in tears as she stared out into the crowd and imagined Ken pretending to be fixated at the ceremony, when truly he would be watching her. She didn't tell Takeru and Daisuke about how she had freaked out at her sisters new Mother-in-Law who told Miyako that she should stay away from the hotel's vending machine. Miyako couldn't help that she was a nervous eater. (It came with the territory of her family owning a convenience store, she always assumed.) And Miyako didn't tell the boys that she secretly hated Hikari for taking that picture perfect moment of dancing with Ken at a wedding away from her. Instead, she emphasized how uncomfortable her four-inch heels were and how psycho of a driver her new brother-in-law's cousin was.

Daisuke spoke but Miyako was too distracted by the fact that he had chewed his straw shut. Not only was this one of her many pet peeves but this situation was causing everything to just seem ten times worse than it truly was. Irritation and frustration were the overaggressive fire boiling her blood.

"So now that Miyako's here and we still don't have a plan, there's nothing else we can do, really. I mean we could call up Iori or something? Cause he's gonna be pissed, he's always pissed, and there's not too many drunk guys willing to drive a kid from Germany to Japan."

_God,_ Miyako groaned internally. "Even Daisuke's stupidity is ten times worse."

Before she even realized that her inner-emotion fire had caused her verbal pot to boil over and her thoughts had become words, Daisuke shot her an offended glare and although Takeru would have normally offered a genial chuckle, he seemed to be over-angry at this whole situation. And his anger was tinted with hurt, which Miyako knew was the worst kind of Takeru anger.

"Fine." Daisuke mumbled. "Well, I'm going to get another juice. And I'm taking my stupidity with me, Miyako." Despite the attempt of a joke, it was clear Daisuke was mad. Great. Chizuru was mad. Takeru was mad. And now even Daisuke was mad. It didn't feel like time was standing still anymore. It felt like it was moving too fast. Things were happening and she couldn't grasp on to anything. Everything was slipping away. Everything was leaving her.

"Miyako," Takeru whispered.

She looked up, the blonde nodded, "Tonight meet me at our old school. The computer lab. We'll go, we have reason to. Daisuke just wants reason to put the goggles on."

She stared at him. Was he serious? Just the two of them had _never_ teamed up. For anything.

But the look on his face was sure, solemn and foreboding, but sure. And that's what Miyako needed, with time speeding by one moment and stopping completely the next, she needed something steady. Something that was going to be there.

And, for now, that was Takeru.

Takeru offered a small, expectant smile that Miyako could almost feel the weight of the pages of subtext involved, but broke her attention as Daisuke wandered back in with a glass of juice and a new straw.

"I brought my juice back. Hopefully my stupidity is still in the kitchen."

Miyako stared at Daisuke. "Sorry, Davis."

The mention of his American nickname seemed to ease Daisuke's anger. She mentally apologized again for what she was about to do without him, as Daisuke was fixated on his juice Miyako turned to Takeru and nodded, adding with a whisper, "Okay."


	20. Aged Paper and Faded Ink

I've never really been big on fanfics with lots of OCs, but it was pretty crucial to have some in this story. I tried to make the ones I introduced as interesting as possible... what do you think of them? Anyway, I'm not updating again until next year ;) Please enjoy and review =)

Happy New Year! :D

_**CHAPTER NINETEEN**_

The forest had thinned as they walked and after arriving at a cliff overlooking the ocean, Sein declared that this be their resting spot for the night. Everyone had immediately settled down, light conversation passing through the group, but Koushiro was silent. The sun had set hours ago, but he didn't know if that meant anything relative to time here in this other-world. He had been the quietest out of everyone in the group. Sein had been barking out the occasional order with Ari as a female echo, who had also been conversing with the twins. Koushiro learned that the twins were from a small town up in the mountains, and one of them was named Givon. Or both of them. Koushiro couldn't figure that dynamic out. Or even if people had last names here. Tevy had spoken in her tiny music-box voice, even Koushiro felt like he should be recording her words for some quote website, everything sounded so profound, especially from such a tiny, delicate looking girl. Baldy, completely under Tevy's fairy-like spell, continuously offered complements and light-hearted jokes. All of which seemed to roll off Tevy like a light breeze.

After Sein and Ari had both fallen asleep, Koushiro broke off from the rest of the group and walked to the edge of the cliff. Where in the world, well, the universe, was he? It seemed Hikari was right, something did happen. It wasn't just her paranoia, she was right! And now he was stuck in this world with no idea where everyone else was or even if they had come too.

The waves lapped up on the shore fifty feet below him. Maybe a convenient letter-in-a-bottle would sweep up onto shore and contain specific instructions on how to get home. Koushiro scoffed, that was something Mimi would have said back in the days following their initial meeting. What did he ever see in her? She was crazy! But it was that hope, that naiveté that-

Koushiro groaned out loud, laying backwards and staring at the sky. Why was he even thinking of her! She was probably the most frustrating person he'd ever met and he didn't regret ending their relationship.

There was a splash, different from the constant pounding of the waves on the shore, irregular and smaller. Koushiro readjusted himself so he was laying on his stomach, moving with his elbows like they did in war movies, inching towards the edge of the cliff.

At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Sand stretched out along the coastline meeting with waves darkened by the night. Then he saw movement. More than the soft wind blowing loose seaweed or the waves rhythmic lapping, a fish?

The dark shielded it well, Koushiro was sure it was a large fish, maybe a seal-like Orendian animal that had come up to land for night-time. A weird green Orendian seal.

Incredible. He watched the animal move, it's sparkly green fins leading up… to peach torso? Koushiro couldn't believe what he was seeing, the fin was attached to a human torso. Okay, this could not be what he was seeing! His scientific mind tried to argue the impossibility of seeing a legendary creature, but science still failed to explain how he was in another world with the girl he had a crush on and the school's psychologist. Curiosity seemed to be fueling his motions, he crept closer to the edge of the cliff, still on his stomach, when she moved. The mermaid lay down on the sand, stretching out her body. She closed her eyes and pulled her hair to the side, revealing her face.

A face Koushiro knew, even from fifty feet away. No, that was not possible! Koushiro rubbed his eyes, and checked again. She was still there. He shook his head and pinched himself. She didn't disappear. He held his eyes shut and counted to ten, but as he opened them he watched as Mimi… or some form of Mimi swung herself back into a wave and vanished into the water.

Before his thoughts could register what he believed his eyes just saw, Koushiro bolted upright and ran back to the camp where the others were hopefully sound asleep.

xxx

"You look like you've seen a ghost!" Amy chided softly as a child would minutes before sleep. Koushiro settled down beside her, clutching his knees and avoiding eye-contact.

He didn't know how to answer. Thoughts, clouded by impossibilities and the duality fear/hope that he was currently suffering a hallucination causing illness. Koushiro stopped to steady himself, the shaking probably made him look like a person tied up in a straitjacket rocking back and forth.

"Nyuh." Koushiro blubbered. His restrained shakiness was affecting his mouth now and nothing could be processed. A mermaid? Impossible. Mimi turning into a mermaid? One of her ten-year-old fantasies. This world just kept getting worse for the scientific mind. Sparkly powder in dirt, moving trees, doppelgangers, MERMAIDS?

Amy, disregarding Koushiro's mouth fumble, folded her hands and set them in her lap. "I believe in them, ghosts, I mean. I've seen one!" She paused and gauged her companion's reaction. Her change of tone seemed to depict discouragement from Koushiro, but she went on to speak. "But It's my job to believe in those kind of things. I think it's fascinating. The current disasters might even be related to them, that's why I am here. Legends and myths about the Six Powers being mythical beings have been around for ages. Or even ones where mythical creatures cause world-shaking disasters."

Koushiro suddenly snapped out of his quivering state. This was the perfect opportunity to get some answers without drawing attention to himself! He let out a steadying sigh before figuring out how to word his question. He wanted to ask about traveling through worlds, doppelgangers and a million other things. But Koushiro's thoughts wouldn't focus enough to let him form one until the most pertinent got explained first.

"Are there such things as mermaids?" He asked it sceptically, although almost certain that's what he'd seen. Or hallucinated.

Amy smiled. "Oh, these stories are my favourite. Ones about witches and fairies and unicorns. Mermaids too. Yes there are." She smiled. "Although no sightings can be confirmed, as there is no way to capture a sighting of one, never mind an actual mermaid. I haven't seen one personally, but my sister spoke of it. They're one of the most magical beings known to Orenda. Their magic is undeniable. There are two kinds of mermaids, Pure and Transpired." She pulled out a pile of parchment tied together with a ribbon, sifting through the pages as she untied the bow. "Here we go."

The paper was brown and faded from age, the ink discoloured but showing, undeniably, a mermaid. It looked like a combination of a textbook diagram and a fantasy picture book illustration. But it was a mermaid. Fish-like tail, long wavy hair and a completely human head and torso. "Pure Mermaids are rare, but the most powerful. Transpired Mermaids are usually the ones that are seen by humans as they aren't as experienced or knowledgeable about their boundaries. The story behind them is that they were originally people or other creatures that became mermaids. The main difference, besides magical abilities, is their appearance. Transpired will look more like this," She motioned towards the page that Koushiro had been intently studying. "Basically like a human person with a scaly omni-coloured tail. There are lots of stories behind the tail colours, none of which are proven of course. Some have to do with the person, or mermaid themselves, like how many loves they've had or the colour of their aura. Others have to do with when they turn, like the phase of the moon or even the colour of the clothing they are wearing at the time of the change. My favourite is it depends on the state of their heart when they make the transformation. Yellow for happy, Blue for sad, you get it."

Amy took out another page from her stack of parchment. The image was similar, but the slight differences were what caught Koushiro's attention. "Pures will be a bit smaller in stature, but much stronger." Koushiro tuned her out, these "Pures" looked like Digimon. A face half covered by a mask, like Angewoman, a tail fading from dark at the hips where it began until it was almost transparently light at the bottom. There were small fins coming out the side where the knees and hips would be. But Koushiro clutched the picture of the Transpired.

"How does someone turn into a mermaid?" He interrupted.

Amy stopped speaking, "There's a few ways. A Pure can change someone. Falling in love with humans and changing them into a Transpired. But there's no record of that ever happening. According to legend the most common way is if a person is feeling their absolute loneliest. So it's a double-sided-sword, on one hand they are changed into something that doesn't feel emotions deeply, but living in a giant empty sea could put things in perspective."

Koushiro thought about all the facts he had just received. He was almost certain Mermaid Mimi had a green tail, what did that mean? Was she lonely? No, it was Mimi. She always surrounded herself with people.

"And how," Koushiro started, still staring at the drawing of the Transpired. "do they turn back into a person?"

Amy sighed, accepting the picture back from Koushiro and re-tying the stack of parchment with a perfect bow. "That's not as common of a legend. From what few stories that there are, it's usually a demonstration of love, the person has to feel not lonely. But how is someone going to demonstrate their feelings when the person they potentially love is living in the ocean?"

All the talk of love was burning Koushiro's cheeks. Love wasn't something he chose to deal with. The uncomfortable topic was his self-given cue to change the subject. "Do you believe in," he paused, trying to choose his words to sound subtle, there weren't too many options that came to mind that would still answer his questions. "Alternate dimensions where there are more versions of oneself?"

Amy raised an ebony eyebrow. "Like reincarnations?"

Koushiro sighed. No, not like reincarnations; but he felt like he was playing Operation and his tweezers were about to cause the patient's nose to light up and the buzzer to go off. So he nodded.

"Yes, I do. It's basically the idea that people are-" Amy giggled, "here's a fun play on words for you, people are solely souls. Only souls that are just inhabiting their body for its lifetime, and then when the body dies, the soul moves on and is reborn. Sometimes souls are attached to their names, like perhaps you have always been Koushiro. Sometimes two souls feel the pull to each other whether they know it or not, sometimes they spend their whole life knowing the person but never acting on it, other times they feel the pull and end up spending their whole lives together.

The subject of love seemed to be unavoidable. "Like… soulmates?" Koushiro asked.

Amy nodded, "Yes. But not just in like, the romantic sense. It works with friendship as well, people might be so different but because their souls are linked, they always find each other in every life."

Koushiro stopped. It was like himself and the other Digidestined. They would probably never speak to each other if it hadn't been for the Digital World forcing them together. Truly, they all had nothing in common, aside from the memories of their adventure. Were they, essentially soulmates? Maybe that explained the predicament they were currently in! This body seemed just like the one he'd always had, and clearly it was his own soul… maybe he was a shadow of himself? A full duplicate in another world, that looks and acts like the true version, but is not.

The theory was full of holes, and although it was just a hypothesis, it frustrated Koushiro. He opened his mouth to ask Amy another question, but as he turned to look, the girl had fallen asleep on her bag.

Amy truly was beautiful. Even if this wasn't her and just some… shadow, it was impossible to tell the difference. The same wavy black hair and perfect porcelain skin. He wondered if somehow their souls were linked. She sighed dreamily and rolled over, clutching her cloak closer, like a blanket. As she curled up, her head in the corner of her bag, Koushiro saw a paper peeking out from inside. It wasn't the aged parchment or the faded ink that caught his attention, or even the fact that it wasn't something from a children's story book like a mermaid, but something he, personally, knew extremely well.

A symbol. Two circles, one smaller than the other, connected by a short curved line. The crest of knowledge. There it was, that feeling again. He was shaking and his heart was pounding and his head was spinning. What was happening?

There was a rustling sound from the bushes. The wind?

The sound of a twig snapping. An animal?

Then there were voices. One accented with the strange tone that he had figured was the "Orendian" accent, the other vaguely familiar. Oh great, Now he knew too much. They were going to exile him. Kill him. Hang him. Throw him into a pit of corpses and let him starve and then rot there for all of eternity.

"Professor Sein?" The accented voice asked.

Sein, like Amy and everyone else had fallen asleep. "_Professor Sein_." The first voice said again. Sein stirred and looked up.

The owner of the accented voice was small, like Koushiro, and very average in every physical attribute. His accomplice, however, was very memorable.

"Paul?" Koushiro croaked.

Paul Udo turned and studied Koushiro's face, briefly, but with the same 'do-I-know-you?' expression that Koushiro had grown very accustomed to throughout his years in school. This wasn't Paul Udo, the one that Taichi hated and Yamato admired and was in Koushiro's computer class, (Koushiro mentally paused to gloat about the fact he was in computers a year ahead.) Koushiro could almost hear Taichi's teasing voice, that is probably the reason behind some _I-don't-know-this-kid_ looks the younger boy received.

The others started to wake up. Sein rose to a stand, weakly and disorientated but the first twin helped him. "Professor Sein, Madam Ari and Mister Koushiro of Orenda Citadel, Mister Baldwin and Lady Tevy of Peri, Miss Amunet of Eutalia, Brothers Givon of Xela, your presence has been ordered immediately at the Palace of Orenda by personal request of Yamato, Awaiting Prince of Orenda."

The others spoke softly to each other. Everyone began collecting their possessions as Paul and the other messenger started leading them back through the forest.

But Koushiro couldn't move. Prince Yamato?


	21. Choose Your Own Adventure

_**CHAPTER TWENTY**_

"Are you seriously pacing?" Jun asked as she tucked her head inside Daisuke's bedroom through the barely-open door.

Half-tempted to ignore her, but having too many thoughts inside his head, Daisuke pulled his rocket-ship printed pillow off of his bed and tossed it at her, effectively shutting the door and getting Jun out at the same time.

The satisfaction of getting those two birds with one pillow forced a grin onto his face as he jumped backwards onto his pillowless bed. Miyako and Takeru had left. Together. At first Daisuke had thought nothing of them leaving a few hours ago, but when Takeru's mother phoned to ask where he was, reality set in. They _left_ left. Without him. Daisuke felt like he was stuck in one of those books where you get to choose what to do at the end of each chapter. In the _Choose Your Own Adventure_ novel that was the life of Motomiya Daisuke, he had three potential choices.

Option A: he could pick up the digivice that was currently sitting on his bedside table under a half-eaten bag of chips, hold it up to the computer screen and hope he got transported to the Digiworld.

Option B entailed using his 'phone a friend' life-line, but anyone he would call in this situation was currently hanging out in other worlds. Without him. This option didn't seem viable.

Option C was staying put and doing nothing but to continue pacing and pissing Jun off.

Daisuke eyed his full collection of the _Choose Your Own Adventure_ series on his bookshelf. As he was a master of those books, the only books that prevented him from being illiterate, he could see the potential endings or consequences of each choice. Going to the Digiworld was the obvious one, but there'd probably be an angry digimon on the other side, or he'd have to go into some desert and starve until some Vulturemon came along and picked the flesh off his body. He questioned the existence of Vulturemon, but shook his head. The brain was sidetracking.

Staying here had potential, although he'd probably go nuts and end up being some crazy hermit ranting on about the existence of these people that nobody else knew of. Well, Takeru and Hikari are still believed to exist, and Ken and Miyako… Daisuke considered being a police liaison and consoling his friends' families. That was a nice image, but that was no fun. What kind of leader was he if he wasn't heading off into the midst of battle, danger, and Takeru's wrath for… well Takeru was usually angry at him for something or other.

_That settles it._ Daisuke thought. As he reached for his Digivice, he knocked the bag of chips on the ground. _Not off to a good start here, Davis._ He thought again, leaning down to pick up the chips. _Who am I kidding? I'm Davis! I don't pick up things! _

As he straightened up, prepared to depart for his solo journey, Daisuke pulled on his new favourite khaki jacket. _You look like Indiana Jones_. Iori had claimed when Daisuke wore it for the first time. Daisuke mentally excused him, Iori was young and unfashionable. Plus Indiana Jonesing himself up could be very useful in this new plan of his.

"Iori!"Daisuke gasped out loud."I'm not gonna be the only one stuck in a normal world! If I'm going off to war, better have a side-kick!"

Iori had written down the number where to reach him in Germany. The family he was staying with had a private phone installed in their guest room. Daisuke found the torn slip of paper and began punching the digits into his cell phone, remembering how Koushiro had joked that it looked more like an IP address than a phone number. Only Miyako had laughed.

The dial tone sounded different. But calling Germany would probably be cheaper than calling the Digital World, or wherever everyone else had gone.

"WHAT!" Iori's voice barked into the phone.

"That better mean, _hello good friend_ in German!" Daisuke replied cheerfully. "I have some-"

"Daisuke, it's two in the morning."

Daisuke turned to his digital clock and rolled his eyes. "It's just nine-thirty… ish, Iori and there is an emer-"

Iori began grumbling a long string of words under his breath.

"Those better mean-"

"I could tell you what they mean but I'm too tired. Call back in- actually don't. This is ridiculous, I'm hanging up."

Daisuke listened to the dial tone for a moment before canceling the call and putting his phone back in his pocket. "Some kids shouldn't learn other languages." He eyed the row of books in this bookshelf, _Alright, Davis, time to flip back to where I was before and pretend like I never chose option B._

He stared at the computer screen. "So, option A?" He asked it. Pausing, waiting for some impossible response, Daisuke answered himself, "Yes? Okay, Davis, turn to page 200." As he held the blue and white digivice up to the screen, the door handle jittered and Daisuke tossed his digivice into a pile of dirty laundry in the corner.

"Who were you talking to?" Jun asked.

Daisuke shrugged, opening his mouth to deny anything, but Jun pushed the portable phone in his direction. "It's for you, Mrs. Ichijouji, I think."

Daisuke put his hands up defensively, refusing to accept the phone. "What am I supposed to say!"

Jun stared until she rolled her eyes and took Daisuke's hand, forcing him to clutch the black cordless phone. "_Hello_ is generally a good starting point." She turned and walked out the door, and an audible addition of "_Freak."_ made its way back into her brother's bedroom.

"Hello, Davis speaking."

"Davis, Honey, it's Mrs. Ichijouji."

"Oh, hello…" Daisuke clenched his fist. He didn't want to lie to his best friend's mom. She was the one person's mom who actually really liked having him over. And she was an awesome cook.

"I'm just calling to check up on things… I've been trying to reach Ken, as you know, but he never called me. At first I just thought he was so caught up in the excitement he forgot, so I phoned his phone and just got his voicemail. But after I left him messages every couple hours, the operator said the inbox was full and I couldn't leave another message!" She was talking quickly, her light voice trying to outrun sobs. Daisuke knew this tone of her voice from whenever Ken did something that made her proud, or on the other hand, worried. "So I decided to call the hotel, remember the number I gave you? Well the nice boy on the other line told me Ken never arrived!" A deep exhale masking a sob came through the receiver and Daisuke twinged, still trying to figure out to say to the lady. "And then when I asked for Miyako, he said that she had left yesterday! Have you heard from them Daisuke? I'm having all these thoughts, like something happened on the train or something happened with Hikari or they ran off and my Ken and Miyako eloped!"

"They didn't elope!" Daisuke said quickly and then added, "That's not something Miyako would allow, she would have to put on an enormous wedding." He paused. He was a good liar. Or at least he'd done it enough times to get good. But this was different than telling the teacher he'd done his homework when in truth he didn't know there was any, or back when he was telling his parents that he'd be on a camping trip or at Ken's when he'd actually be in the Digital World. But lying to Mrs. Ichijouji seemed much worse. But it's not like he could slip out the truth, oh yeah well we don't know where Ken's off to, we're hoping it's the Digital World but it's probably the Dark Ocean, and Miyako and her search-and-rescue squad partner Takeru are off searching for him and Hikari. The truth sounded more like a bedtime story than anything else.

"Daisuke, honey?"

"I haven't heard from Ken since he left." Truth. "And I didn't know Miyako was back." Half-truth. She's not back from The Digital World.

"Oh. Well, thank you, Davis. I was hoping he was there but if you hear from him, tell him to phone home."

Daisuke paused and she hung up before he could say anything. No, Ken definitely wasn't _here._ And _here_ was much more than Mrs. Ichijouji could imagine.

* * *

THERES CHAPTER TWENTY! :)

Happy 2011 everyone!

Thank you for all the story watches, author watches and favourites! =) Most of all, thank you for sticking with me throughout 2010 and I hope to hear from you in this new year, 2011 =) Special thank you to SweetKari and Dreams on Wings who have been with me from the start, and to everyone who has joined in along the way (Still Not King, Taiora-AAML-Serena-Darien, Melodisz). I know there's more but I haven't heard from you yet, I'd love to hear some more opinions! =) So to everyone who has been reading but not commenting, please let me know what you've thought of the story through the past 20 chapters, (21 if you include the prologue) it's a big accomplishment for me to have gotten this far, so I'd love to hear back from you guys! :D

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my story and my little blurb, I appreciate everything =)


	22. Light in the Dark

Remember me? Yes, I'm still alive. I'm sorry I haven't updated in well, forever, but January was crazy. There were a lot of family issues and I spent most of my free time either doing homework or writing my book for a novel contest. ANYWAY, back to this. I re-read all the past chapters to fully remind myself(and edit a couple embarrassing mistakes). So I recommend if you feel that you've forgotten everything to go back and reread but I am going to give a VERY quick and poorly written recap to save you some time and remind you what's going on =)

The six oldest digidestined are in an alter-word called Orenda where Yamato is the prince-to-be and has met head royal officer, Kairo and the boyish officer Pell. Yamato was deemed sick, so Pell sent for the messenger Paul Udo to get a doctor from town. The doctor turned out to be Jyou, who is assisted by Jim, a "shadow" of his brother Shin.

Taichi is a captain on-board a pirate ship, and his first mate is the shadow of Wallace, Willis. They captured a ship and discovered it to belong to a princess. The princess turns out to be none other than Sora, who is accompanied by Catherine. Koushiro is a researcher who is in a group with Orenda's best and brightest, including Amy, Ari and Sein. While exploring the forest, Koushiro comes across the Orendian ocean where he discovers that Mimi is a mermaid.

The younger digidestined group is just as fractured in trying to bring the older Digidestined home. Ken and Kari have transported themselves to the Dark Ocean, TK and Yolei are planning to meet up and sneak to the Digital World and leave Daisuke home alone, with Cody all the way in Germany.

Hope this brought everything back, now back to where I left off =)

* * *

_**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE**_

"Taichi!" Hikari called for the tenth time. She tried a different octave each time and noticed Ken shudder out of the corner of her eye. She couldn't see him, or anything for that matter, very clearly; it felt like she had just gotten out of a highly chlorinated pool and someone was dimming the the lights. Ken's silhouette was vaguely highlighted by the gray light filtering through the opening of the cave and reflecting off the puddles that collected in the middle of the stony concave floor. It was called light, right? Grey light… Hikari shivered just as Ken had. She hated this place.

But why did she feel so drawn here? No one else believed her when she claimed that their older friends could be here. Did she really actually believe that they were?

She called again, this time for Sora and nobody answered except the hollow echoes that bounced off the walls in response, down the long dark cavern.

Aside from those echoes, they hadn't gotten any responses to Hikari's shouts, or the pained ones that Ken offered when Hikari gave him desperate glances. He didn't want to be here. That was painfully obvious. Hikari felt bad, he should have gone to… where did he say he was going? To visit Miyako?

She wanted to apologize, but silence seemed to be their buffer. Conversation would dig a hole deeper than the path they were treading down.

How long had they been here? There was nothing to indicate what time it was, although Hikari's throbbing feet argued hours had passed. Several.

She called out another named. Jyou. Was she even looking for them? Was there something supernatural drawing her here, something that wasn't finished with her? The memory of the Divermon creatures from three years ago sent a shiver up Hikari's spine. Queen Kari. With the Numemon it was one thing… fear was the last thing she felt around them. But those shadowy Divermon… could that be what was calling her back?

Ken obviously didn't feel like he was being called. Hikari thought this as she looked at him, several paces behind her. His thoughts were surely as loaded as hers, although a different topic probably replacing the Divermon. If he was being called, she wouldn't have had to convince him to come as she had. But although she had strong-armed her best friend's boyfriend into it, Hikari thought, he still came. Takeru… if it had been him, Hikari wondered if he would.

Sure, Takeru would do anything for her… when they were on good terms. But when they fought he found any excuse to stay away from her. Matt, school, writing. He never even let her read his newest story. She had listened to Sora rant about how the character based on the redhead was horrible and mean, but Hikari didn't even know if there was one in her own likeness. She tried not to think about it. If he let Sora read his work when the character based on her was quite unfortunate in every facet of her fictional life… was Hikari's that much worse? She was so scared to know that she never asked.

"Hikari." Ken said softly. However, it was not the gentle softness that Hikari associated with him, but firm… irritated. Soft because he didn't want to speak but there was a necessity, which he indicated from his tone.

"I'm stopping."

She was prepared to voice all her explanations that she had been giving herself. She knew it didn't make sense to keep going deeper and deeper into the cave, she knew they would have to spend hours making their way out once they cave to the inevitable dead end… Or what if there was no dead end? What if this stone hallway went on forever and whatever Hikari thought was calling her didn't exist and was a product of her own over-productive imagination. They would be trapped and lost and it would be all her fault.

"I'm tired." He said simply.

She watched silently as Ken sunk against the wall and with his overnight bag that he had been carrying the whole day, he fashioned a pillow.

Without a word, Hikari sat beside him. She was embarrassed, ashamed and owed him an explanation.

"Ken, I-"

"Go to sleep."

She clutched her coat and lay her head back against the wall. She couldn't lay down, she didn't want to fall asleep.

"I'm sorry." She said anyway.

He was silent but with the sound of her mewing like sigh he spoke.

"I don't really want to talk now. It's not your fault, I just… have a lot of things on my mind that I need to stay there for now."

Hikari nodded, she understood without comprehending. She didn't know what could be on his mind that wasn't her fault but she sympathized with the need to not talk about it. Like the whole situation with the bruise on her wrist and Takeru. Even though Koushiro got the receiving end of her mental explosion, it wasn't like she talked _to_ him about it… she just talked _at_ him. Hikari knew Ken would be similar to Koushiro in that way, knowing when he was needed just to listen. But when it came to herself, she always tried to give advice. Even if she didn't realize it, she was trying to help. And Hikari learned from Takeru that not all people want advice, sometimes they just need someone to nod and smile.

But Hikari always needed to help.

Ken probably knew this too.

"I'm sorry I got you into this, Ken. I just felt like… I needed to come here. I'm not sure if we'll find the others but as much as I don't want to be here… I feels like it is supposed to be this way. I will-"

"It's fine, Hikari." He sighed, knowing he would have to betray his whole not-speaking-until-tomorrow statement to settle the small brunette's mind. "I think, as much as I don't want to be here, there's a purpose. I don't know what it is yet either, and hopefully it's not too much deeper in this cave." He offered an exhausted chuckle. "And I think it is supposed to be us here. You and me. We're the messed up ones. The misunderstood ones with baggage who have to stick together." He was making a joke, but the undertones were serious.

Before Hikari could say anything, Ken stopped her. He was done talking. He had made her feel better.

"Here."

The blazer he pulled out from his duffel bag was wrinkled and again Hikari was hit with a pang of guilt. He was supposed to be with Miyako at her sister's wedding. But instead he was here, in the dark, road-to-nowhere cave that they may or may not be _called_ to venture through.

He held it out to her. If it were Takeru or Daisuke, they would have tossed it at her… but Ken waited for her to accept it from him. When she did, he offered a small smile. A Ken, gentle smile. "I have some pants you can use as a pillow, if you want."

Hikari draped the boy's suit jacket around her shoulders as he placed the folded pair of matching dress pants beside his duffel bag.

"Goodnight, Hikari."

She offered a small smile and settled down on her makeshift pillow. The ground was cold and the chill made it through Ken's blazer and her own wool coat. But she _was_ supposed to be there, she could feel it now. She was called, maybe not by strange Digimon creatures, but by her own self. The very light in her being. She had the crest of light after all, maybe the darkest place she knew was truly where she could be of the most help.

She rolled over to look at Ken, his silky hair fanned out on his bag and the breaths that left his lips were soft and regular. He was asleep. She had seen him asleep a couple times and always thought of how peaceful he looked. His porcelain skin and the faint up-turn of his lips made him look so naïve and innocent. Ironic, since he had endured and one time in his life, resorted to inflicting more darkness and pain than Hikari could ever imagine.

Maybe that's why they were called here. She was the child of light and he was the one who overcame the greatest darkness.

* * *

Reviews & Comments are loved as always, I hope to hear from everyone! =)


	23. Their Mimi

_Thank you to everyone for all the great reviews :D I love reading them, so don't worry about sending too many or making them too long… they all are wonderful and greatly appreciated =) I'd like to extend a special welcome to silvana94, Patteh and Helen who both just found my story and have warmed my heart with lovely comments =) And to everyone who found this from FYDD (tumblr) especially brittanymcmillan and you-are-my-saving-grace: thank you so much for such insanely kind words and to anyone else who found me via FYDD, if you don't have a account, I would love any reviews or thoughts on the fic, just leave them in my tumblr personal ask [.com/ask] =) And of course to those who have been with me for quite awhile (Chloe, Sweet Cari, Dreams on Wings, Still Not King and everyone else) thanks for all your continued support =)_

_Haha sorry about that long blurb, I've been kind of putting off writing this chapter because I knew it had to be a long one but once I got started I couldn't stop! Enjoy and if you have any comments, let me know by whatever means is most convenient! :D_

_**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO**_

It was like time stood still. Or was passing way too fast. Had this all happened to her today? Or had weeks passed and she had been too content to realize? Mimi flipped over on her stomach and drew designs in the sand. She had gotten the hang of swimming with her Granny Smith apple-coloured tail; sure it had been a little strange at first- but what girl didn't want to be a mermaid?

She'd always been one of those girls to cross her ankles together in the swimming pool, pretending to be Ariel. But this wasn't pretend. No one was calling her to get out of the pool and dry off. Her mother wasn't fretting about pruney skin and her father wasn't insisting that she use goggles to protect her eyes from chlorine or salt, whatever the case happened to be. She had yet to feel the salt stinging her eyes, or any discomfort for that matter… she had yet to feel too cold, too hot, too tired… too_ anything_. It was like the soft swaying of the water was calming her emotions, slowing them down and making even the million things she'd been feeling towards all her friends seem less pertinent. This was complete emotional freedom.

The ocean wasn't like a mall after all. Before, when she'd been to the beach, she would stay on the sand to tan or if her mother insisted she was doomed to die of skin cancer she would dip in the water, but not go any farther out than her shoulders. Heaven forbid she get that salty crunchiness in her hair!

But she didn't care about that now. She didn't care about that at the beach with Jyou… Oh, Jyou. Mimi lay beside a banana coloured patch of seaweed and ran her fingers through it as if she were petting a small animal. Where could Jyou be? Was he safe?

There was a lurch in Mimi's chest that caused a shiver. What was that? She shook it off and tried to picture Jyou as a mermaid, or rather- a merman. He was paler than she, but tall and lean… no he didn't have the rippling six-pack that one often associated with mermen… how would he be able to see without his glasses? Mimi chuckled to herself and spun upwards. Any trace of the lurch in her stomach had disappeared.

The non-mall ocean had no pattern to parallel the layout of different wings and aisles of stores, it was truly vast. She could swim one way and there would be an infinite amount of different possible directions, each beckoning to an expanse that went on for miles and miles, clouded only by the salty movement of water and the occasional bunch of fishes. They didn't even alarm Mimi anymore, they just let her swim on by and as long as she didn't bother them… they wouldn't bother her.

Was she on Earth? The thought entered her brain several times. She had never been to any place that hadn't been immensely populated, any expectation she held to see Cruise Liners and Oil Rigs had not been met. She had never travelled so long without seeing another person since, well, the Digital World. Is that where she was? She looked at another school of silvery fishes that she drifted past, they looked just like real-world fish, not the brightly coloured ones that Gomamon would splurt out whenever they were in need of some aquatic assistance in the Digital World.

She opened her mouth to talk, maybe the fish were Digimon! But, alarmed, the cloud of fish darted off.

So, where was she?

Mimi had found land once, she knew not how long it had been since or how long she had lain on the sand that carpeted the base of a cliff, but it had felt strange. Not like the unpleasantness of getting out of a pool and dashing to find a towel or the sensation after getting out of the perfect warm bed in the morning but something completely unprecedented. As Mimi had spawled her body in the sand, the muzzle that had been on her brain was removed. Everything was suddenly clearer as if she had been in a realistic dream for hours and hours and only just then awoke. It wasn't altogether unpleasant and nothing specific came to mind that would cause her any emotional pain, but upon deciding to re-enter the water, she decided it was just easier. Why wait for some inevitable onset of emotion when she could swim for hours, exploring and thinking frivolous thoughts?

As she lay drifting on the hammock of the soft ocean flow, Mimi stared upwards. Hundreds of feet above her head she could see the rippling of the surface like bunched up Saran-Wrap. She remembered a time, before she'd left to New York where she had attempted to make cookies and the only person who dared to try one was Jyou. She thought even the bottomless-pit of Taichi would have attempted one, but he had chuckled, "No offence, Meems, I have enough experience with my Mom's baking to know the warning signs."

Yes, they had looked like flattened charcoal sprinkled with dead-flies instead of oatmeal cookies with raisins, but she was sure they were somewhat edible. Jyou had finished each one of the dozen cookies himself, and, as he clutched the Saran wrap that had covered the plate, he assured her, "They were great, Mimi. Have you ever thought of being a cook?"

Something suddently jolted her out of her reverie, but this time it was not something inside of her but a great physical force. A change in the current? But everything had been so calm! Mimi tried to swim opposite the tide, but the force grabbed her like an evil Digimon and strapped her into an invisible roller-coaster. It forced her upwards and then plummeted down through the great expanse of ocean, tearing up seaweed and catching fish as it pushed forward and forward until it slammed Mimi's body up against a great stone wall. The exclamation from Mimi's mouth was almost as loud as the thud her body made as the brick trembled from the force in which she had impacted it. She tried to catch her breath as she wove her fingers into the crevices of the brick, holding on to it in case something decided to violently whisk her away again.

After she was certain it was safe, she peeled herself from the wall, which was the title-page to what appeared to be a small underwater village.

"Atlantis?" Mimi wondered out loud, her words forcing small bubbles to escape her mouth as she did so.

As she wove her way through the roads and pathways of tiny buildings, all covered with a fine layer of sea algae she felt like she was in one of the old Western movies that her dad liked. She was in an underwater ghost town.

She gently pushed the door of a small hut and it collapsed, the broken hinge emitting a burst of rust-orange water as it crumbled and sand swirled around her tail as the door fell flat onto the sand. After the mini-explosion settled, Mimi lay the door- wooden, but too waterlogged to float, against the brick wall and made her way inside. People once lived here, not mermaids or fish-people or Digimon, but real live human beings. There was no stove, but a big cauldron resting in the fireplace and soggy ashes were still settled in the pit below it. Mimi shuddered. Years had passed on this time-forgotten town, this was not from a modern day land like the one she knew, but out of stories like the Christmas Carol. Every year her father insisted on reading one chapter of the novel every night leading up to Christmas eve, and she knew the story back to front. Mimi imagined Tiny Tim laying his cane on the chair that still sat loyally waiting by the door-frame, waiting for someone to return from a day in the town. The desk on the other side of the room, now split in half from years of these violent currents passing through the broken-glass framed windows, would have been where Bob Cratchit sat while doing his work for Mr. Scrooge. Mimi gently pushed herself through the water to examine a feather- a quill- still sitting in the empty ink well. Around the corner Mimi could see a small cot, with a quilt lain over top and pictured Martha reading a story to one of the younger Cratchit children. She shivered… this was giving her the creeps.

As she swam, a bit more quickly, through the rest of the town, Mimi remembered an old IMAX movie she had seen once, about this high-tech submarine going down to the wreckage of the Titanic. There were dishes still in china cabinets and perfume that you could still smell from the first class staterooms.

She wondered if the people of these towns had survived, if they had just grabbed the bare essentials and ran for higher grounds, surely it was those dangerous tides that had done this damage- flooded this town that once was caressed by sunlight.

Sunlight.

When Mimi had found that stretch of shore, it had been dark… in an impulse of curiousity more than reminiceing, Mimi suddenly sprang herself straight up, rocketing towards the crumpled saran-wrap surface.

Water. That's all there was for miles and miles and miles. There was not even the smallest clue to the dilapidated town that lay a hundred feet or so below the now-calm waves. The steady parallel beat of waves flushed all around her – except, one patch of calm out in the distance. What was it?

Mimi neared closer, an island? She dove back underwater and swam as fast as she could, looking down at the village just as she had done when the plane took off from Tokyo International Airport all those years ago. She passed the wall that she had been pinned up against, only then noticing that it was a mere fragment of what lay in the disntance. Similar in makeup, it appeared to be a much larger version of the other wall but it was a whole cylindrical building. How did she miss this. It was a castle, or at least a large pillar of one! The Atlantis theory came back to mind temporaily, as Mimi resurfaced. The island that she had seen was just, in fact, the top of an underwater castle!

Curious, Mimi began to dive down, spiralling downward around the castle looking for some sort of entrance. She half expected a drawbridge, but she would have no alligator infested moat to worry about!

Instead of a drawbridge there was, instead, a giant archway, guarded by stone gargoyles of the same dark stone-gray as the rest of the brick. The water had eroded most of their features but Mimi shuddered as the beady stone eyes still seemed to stare directly at her. Timidly she waded past the stone guards and as she passed under the archway into the building, all the hairs on her torso were standing upright and pins-and-needles began to corse throughout her tail. The archway led to a hallway which, at the end, decended into a dark spiral stairway. What could be down there? Mimi tried to paddle herself towards it but the water seemed to thicken, more like gelatin than water. It felt as though she was in a dream, trying to walk towards whatever she yearned for but no matter how hard she tried it wouldn't let her. Was she trapped? Mimi swam backwards towards the door- normal water, just as easy as it had always been. What lay down those stairs must surely be important!

When she could no longer swim with ease, Mimi decided, just as she had done to protect herself from the monstrous current, to dig her fingers into the indentations of the brick walls. She forced herself forwards, her slight arms pulling her body as if she was doing the monkey bars and someone was holding her legs, not permitting her to swing. With each pull towards the stairway it grew harder and harder to see, then to breath. Was whatever lay down those stairs turning her back into a human? Curiosity outweighed safety as Mimi pulled herself closer, it was now pitch black. She didn't feel fear, she knew she should have been scared to death but whatever was pulling her had more power than her numbed emotions. Mimi felt the wet gritty brick chip off with the weight which she was pulling herself with, she dug her fingers in, pulling with all her might. She gasped. Again and again.

She was choking.

The oxygen in the water, or whatever was permitting her to breath had disappeared and it felt like her lungs were being filled with hot and sticky tar. She let go of the brick wall to clutch her throat with a sickly cry. The salt began to burn her eyes and she was trembling from head to toe. Or head to tail… or was it actually head to toe, now? She couldn't bear to look. Mimi lunged herself back towards the light, not stopping to check if she could breathe or if she should be kicking with alternating strides or still have her ankles tied together. After leaving the castle, Mimi didn't stop but kept swimming until she broke the surface of the ocean, dropping herself onto the sandy brick island as she had done many times before- but instead of an island formed by a hidden castle's pillar, it had been her running into her room and diving into bed with tears cascading down her cheeks from the realization that her friends had moved on without her. She wasn't their Mimi anymore.

She couldn't swallow the air fast enough. She gasped and rolled onto her back, relief filling her body just as the oxygen filled her lungs. Mimi's breaths were still rapid and shallow but she began to wonder what happened. Was she changing back?

Mimi lifted her torso to examine her tail, still there. With a sigh she rolled over onto her stomach, her breathing pattern slowly returning to normal. The sun was still high in the sky, it felt like late afternoon and it was hard to imagine something so bleak and black lay a hundred feet below her body.

Her highlighter-green tale reflected a soft blue-grey light, what was that? Mimi squinted and turned around. She couldn't walk, but she rotated herself so that she was kneeling to give herself a bit more height. Housed in a simple stone gazebo was an ornate statue, a being with no head or face- no idententity, but it was distinctly masculine. The wind and currents had touched it, that much was evident, but neither had harmed it. The glow was emitting from several grey jewels encircling the pedestal that held up a lean marble torso with a symbol emblazoned into the chest.

Mimi gasped, yearning to go closer but frozen in some indistinguishable emotion. The feeling inside of her chest returned, lurching and uncomfortable as she stared in awe at the statue that bared Jyou's crest of reliability.


	24. Door

Sorry about this, I meant to upload this chapter last night but my computer was being crazy. I'm pretty proud of the title on this one, not only is it a giant symbol of this chapter, but it's also the name of Yamato's band (The Teenage Wolves)'s album! Well done, me ;) Haha jk jk. AANYWAY thank you SO MUCH for the wonderful, wonderful reviews from the last chapter =) [Mitchie Love , Sweet Cari , twiinklestar, tetrisvinil, Taiora-AAML-Serena-Darien, helen ess … you guys all gave me the hugest smiles and made me so happy! Thank you all so much for your lovely kind words! ] You never need to worry about them being too long or too short, anything and everything warms my heart :D If you don't have a account or prefer to be anonymous, an unsigned review is welcomed too! I just love hearing feedback, it really helps me get through the next chapter faster because I want to learn what all you guys think of it! So here's chapter twenty-three, focusing on Prince-to-be Yamato ;) Man, it's getting so hard to write short chapters since there's so much that is going on, but that's okay, I hope you enjoy it! :D

_**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE**_

That door.

The solid mahogany door with the brass handle and the elaborate shapes and swirls carved into it so perfectly, as if it had been play-doh instead of solid reddish-brown wood. Yamato had to keep reminding himself that it was just a door. One that lead into the Coronation Room… but nonetheless, it was a door that led into a room. That was all.

But why couldn't he turn away?

Yamato had never been the curious type, he knew how to mind his own business and how to shut the rest of the world out if it was necessary. But how was he to shut out a world he knew almost nothing about?

He remembered once when he was small, he used to hang out at his dad's TV station. This wasn't by choice but because of his mother saying that it was unhealthy for a young boy to be staying home alone for several hours at a time. Did she think he was going to turn into a sociopath or a hermit or something? Originally this was her ploy to convince Hiroki that Yamato should spend time at her house with Takeru during work hours, but the wounds were still fresh from the divorce and any accord between the two would be an admission of shortcomings – or worse- neediness.

Yamato got his own little PRESS nametag made that he wore around his neck when he stayed at the station. Usually Hiroki pawned Yamato off on the fresh-out-of-film-school intern of the moment, but each of them had more concerns than minding their bosses son. Hiding acne scars and what extremity to pierce next, for example.

While the interns were busy figuring out ways to avoid conforming to the mass media (that they were ironically so keen on producing), Yamato wandered off and finally found a room where he would spend all day until he turned eleven and was deemed old enough to stay home alone. The room had been untouched for years, the windows were curtained by cobwebs and the floor was carpeted by dust. Nothing remained in the room aside from an old VCR hooked up to a TV (ten inches and topped off with bunny ear antennae) accompanied with dozens of cardboard boxes stocked to the brim with unmarked VHS tapes. Yamato spent hours going through documentaries, TV specials and the occasional unfamiliar made-for-tv movie. There was one, Yamato couldn't recall the name or even much of the plot, but with his now almost-complete high school education to add to the memory, he could conclude that it was about Imperial Russia. That's what this door reminded him of. Enormous, elegant and strong… but hiding something. A secret.

Now, Yamato highly doubted a haemophiliac child lay beyond the huge double doors that stood before him – tall and foreboding- but he could feel like there was something he had to see, more than some giant room. But then, at the same time, he knew it was something he wasn't supposed to see.

Maybe just a tiny peek, he was prince after all.

Yamato lifted a hand, years of unrealized curiosity coursing through him like how those old VHS tapes filled the cardboard boxes, forcing the sides to slowly split and threaten the dust covered floor with a title wave of old videos… or in Yamato's case, Koushiro-esque curiosity.

The brass handle was solid and cold to the touch. Just as he began to push-"Your highness!"

Yamato let his arms drop rapidly to his sides as he faced another officer, one of the young men from the conference room, but it wasn't Pell or Kairo. "Your presence is requested."

Yamato started to search his mind for a false explanation to what he had just been caught doing, but the expression on the young officers face let on to no realization. Without another word, the young man led him towards the basement stairs.

He was tall and freckled with carrot-coloured hair, much the same colour as Sora's. Yamato loved Sora's hair, the guilt of knowing that she was trying to grow it out for him was eclipsed by the desire to see how beautiful she would look with waist length hair. Mimi could completely change her hairstyle on a whim, even Taichi had more hairstyle leniency than Sora, but Matt would never speak of this. He remembered the incident where the named brunet got Sora a hairclip for her birthday and she was infuriated by this inadvertent critique of her hairstyle. Matt thought too often before he spoke to even attempt to go there.

As the freckled officer led Yamato down towards the basement, back to the conference room, Yamato saw a huge floor-rug sized tapestry. It reminded him of those beach towels you could get at Wal-Mart with the characters faces on them, the detail of the pictured man on the tapestry was eerily close to photograph-like. "Who is that?" Yamato asked, motioning towards the woven image of the man.

The officer tilted his head slightly to see what the pre-prince was talking about. "King Ansipellus." He said, as Yamato would if someone had held up a picture of John Lennon and asked him who it was. "He was Officer Pell's great-great-great Uncle. Pell was supposed to be the next prince instead of you, but Kairo is too heavily influenced by the Council."

It was hard to guess what the freckled officer felt about this. He was telling Yamato as if it was some passage from a history book that every Orendian had to read in elementary school. Pell, huh? He had been really decent to Yamato, maybe he didn't want to be prince? Was it truly that bad? Yamato remembered the curly-haired young officer telling him how every prince-to-be disappeared or became deathly ill. Was there some sort of curse?

If he was cursed, how would he find his friends? Sure, he knew Sora was headstrong and independent, if she was in this world she could surely fend for herself. Yamato peered out of a mailbox-sized window in the stone wall as they walked down the stone stairwell. Then again, he knew not what was out there. Jyou had seen some towns, how many could there be? One for each of his friends? Were they all safe? Yamato had earlier attempted to ask a random woman in the castle where he could find the court jester, but the woman timidly tightened her grip on the basket of bread she was holding and looked at Yamato as if it was _he_ who was the court jester. So, no Taichi, at least not in the castle. But that would be too easy, wouldn't it? For all his friends to walk through the castle gates give their location co-ordinates and go on their way so they could all meet up at a more convenient time and transport themselves back home. Magically.

No, they had learned as Digidestined that shortcuts were not handed to them. Sometimes they would be slipped a useful card under the table, but never the whole hand.

As Freckles opened the dungeon-like door, there it was: his card slipped under-or rather- sitting at the table.

Koushiro.

"Ah, your majesty, thank you for joining us." Kairo claimed, bowing his head slightly which caused Koushiro and the small band of misfit people around him to do the same.

"All this weekend's guests are accounted for, but one. The ship has seemingly disappeared but all the officials from Pena, the textile district, are searching for it." Kairo spoke, but Matt started at Koushiro. They were trying to communicate without moving their lips, a feat that involved a lot of eyebrow movement and the older man that sat next to Koushiro was starting to stare at Yamato curiously. "These are Orenda's top researchers, headed by Professor Sein." Kairo flourished his hand towards the aforementioned older man who stood, looking frail not from his age, but moreso his experience. He bowed his head slightly and returned to his spot beside Koushiro.

"We have asked of your presence, Professor, to check in. Orenda is in such a risky state that this could not be done by any means of correspondence aside from face to face discussion. Word cannot get out. Panic must not ensue."

The air in the room seemed to thicken. Yamato wondered if the researchers were holding their breaths, that must have been a lot of pressure to hold.

Well, no more than his. He had to save them all. They just had to find out what he was saving them from.

We need to know if the disasters are going to interfere with Prince Yamato's reign, or what is currently more a matter of concern, the guests we have expected to arrive by the end of the week. Are we safe?"

Sein nodded after surveying the faces of people in his company. "We have seen no reason to worry."

Koushiro opened his mouth but immediately shut it, Kairo noticed this. "What were you going to say?"

Yamato's friend lowered his head as his face turned scarlet. "Nothing, Sir. You have no reason to worry."

"Good." Kairo grinned and hiked his shoulders back, pleased. This caused his whole large frame to shift and a line from a Christmas poem came into Yamato's mind.

"-like a bowl full of jelly."

He snickered.

"Your highness? Are you feeling okay? I think it would be best if you returned to your quarters while I proceed with this meeting. You need to recover."

Yamato nodded. "It was nice to meet you all." He nodded politely at Sein and Koushiro's company before rapidly tilting his head out the door when his eyes met Koushiro's. Koushiro nodded slightly in assent and Yamato turned away. He hated that stupid little tilt, Taichi used to do that to Sora when they would sneak out of class and… Yamato didn't even want to think about that. He had never been the jealous type, Sora wasn't with Tai anymore, she never truly had been. She was with Yamato.

Not so much in the physical sense, however.

Yamato began walking back up the stairs. He had spent much of his time meandering around the castle, but had never gone to the basement without some sort of guide. Were they hiding something? What could it be? Was that what lay behind those huge doors?

Why was he turning into some sort of paranoid freak? That was Jyou's job.

Yamato smiled and mentally apologized to Jyou. If it hadn't been for the older boy, Yamato would probably be chained to his bed or… a guillotine.

When he came to the tapestry of Pell's ancestor, Yamato slipped behind it, much like a small child wood go behind the curtains in a game of hide-and-seek.

"Yamato?" a hushed whisper echoed off the stone hallway. "Where are you?

Yamato snickered. His heart began to pound as he heard Koushiro ascend the staircase, quietly calling his name.

"Yamato?"

He was two steps down from the tapestry, Yamato stuck out his foot and felt Koushiro's weight lean against him, toppling the younger boy over.

"Not really the time or place, Matt." He snarled.

Yamato shrugged, smiling softly. "We should find some place to talk."

They went back down the stairs and snuck past the closed-door where the conference was being held into a small room at the end of the hallway. Shivers ran up and down Yamato's spine. A small, room covered in dusk and cobwebs. All that was missing was a tiny TV and boxes of videos.

They stared at each other for a moment, unsure of how to react. Koushiro's bottom lip began to tremble slightly. Oh God.

"Man, don't cry!"

"I'm not." Koushiro said, his quivering voice proving his words to be a lie. "I-I just," He stopped to let out a controlled breath. "I thought I was the only one here!" He fell towards Yamato and gave the older boy a hug. Awkward. "Well, not the only one, but like the only one I could… that was normal, I mean-" He pulled away.

"Jyou's here too. Not like _here,_ here. But here, in Orenda."

Koushiro, looking at the closed door as if he was daring it to open with his eyes, "You've seen Jyou! Where is he? Is he like…" Koushiro lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper, "Human?"

"As human as he's ever been." Yamato snickered, he replayed the vague instructions Jyou had given him, over in his head. "At his little house. He was here yesterday. Haven't you met up with anyone? Have you seen Sora?"

Koushiro shook his head, but the tentativeness made Yamato question his response. There was something he wasn't fully explaining. What was this emphasis on being human? Horrible thoughts filled his mind, had something bad happened to Sora? Or Takeru!

"Is Takeru okay!" Yamato said so softly and quickly that it sounded like a muffled gasp.

Koushiro raised his hands to his chest and shook his head. "No, no I haven't seen anyone… in the… form one would… expect."

"What? Koushiro, you're freaking me out!"

Koushiro settled himself onto the floor, focusing his gaze on his lap and the door. "I don't think…" He focused through the door as if he could see down the hall into the conference room, his eyes drawing invisible lines between all the things in the room, everything aside from Yamato. "It's a good time to discuss…"

"There's no one here!"

At the sight of Koushiro's warning look Yamato sighed. They had no idea who could be here, who they could be trust, who could be listening through the cracks in the door. "Got it." Yamato said bluntly. "Maybe we should… go find Jyou. Get everyone together, so if we find a way back then we are all accounted for and there are no other worldly searches for the rest of us."

Koushiro nodded in accordance, Yamato let his gaze latch onto the door that Koushiro was guarding. There had to be a reason Koushiro was so antsy. Was he protecting Yamato? He whispered, his lips barely moving, "Please tell me who it is. Please tell me Takeru is-"

"It's Mimi." Koushiro said bluntly, almost hostilely. "And Yamato, do not say _if _we find a way back. It has to be _when_. We have to get back home."


	25. Lock and Key

Thank you to , Shara Raizel , Mitchie Love , RabbitArchangel , tetrisvinil , helen ess , Sweet Cari , Taiora-AAML-Serena-Darien, and twiinklestar for all the wonderful reviews =) I'm so glad that my story has intrigued you, some from the start, and some just recently =) I hope this next chapter doesn't disappoint!

Thank you to all the aforementioned, and to everyone else who has read this and is still checking back for new chapters =)

Things are going to start happening a bit faster now haha, that chapter after this one is why I changed the rating from K+ to T… so hopefully that goes well too.

This chapter has quite a few allusions to an event in the first season, as well as finally connecting the clip that was the inspiration for the fic!

ANYWAY! I hope you enjoy and I'd love to hear what you think so don't be shy! =)

_**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR**_

It looked like Alcatraz.

Miles and miles away from the lush Digital-World forests, he stood and started. The cold winds chilled Takeru just as much as the returning memories did.

_Scratch Alcatraz_, Takeru thought. It looked like Mayan Ruins. Dark stone towers on a cliff-side that once looked powerful and looming now looked damaged, broken. Forgotten.

Just as he had seven years ago, he climbed the steps carved into the mountain, but instead of what he saw back then, he looked up at a collapsed building. Another shiver ran up and back down his spine.

"Come on, Napoleon." Miyako scoffed as she marched past him through the heavy metal doors doors. Takeru froze. He could still picture the Devidramon pacing inside, blocking their only gateway to the real world. But they weren't there, he wasn't following Yamato, Taichi and the others. He was the leader now.

It was abandoned. The walls had caved in all around and only the central building stood somewhat reliably. That's all he remembered, and it was okay, because that was all they needed.

"And I do mean Napoleon." Miyako elaborated as she turned around to face the blond boy. Her face was only half visible through the slowly closing door, looking like she was inside a departing elevator as she continued, "I was going to say Columbus 'cause you're like leading me through all the unfamiliar digital world territory but now you're just acting like a ruthless dictator. My feet hurt and I'm tired and I'm pretty sure wherever we're going and wherever Hikari and Ken are and Taichi and the others are will still be there… definitely no closer or farther away to where we are now, if we stop and rest for like… a week."

"We can't stop, not now." Takeru said softly, disregarding her dictator comment and forcing his hand towards her face, pushing his way through the dented and bent steel bolted door.

"How long is this going to take, then?" Miyako moaned, not even attempting to disguise her discomfort and impatience.

Takeru, half-answering his companion but mostly trying to reassure himself. "I'm looking for something. It has to be in here." He began moving stones and digging through rubble. The once glorious room, (albeit slightly terrifying with the stone-turned-Digimon protectors that guarded it) was destroyed from the battle that happened so many years ago. Mental holograms of their Champion-level Digimon fighting those black winged Digimon with the four red eyes, played in front of Takeru.

Where had Taichi been standing? Takeru looked around the room and tried to imagine it as it had been, with Tai in the midst… trying to figure out which card to choose.

Miyako sighed dramatically and raised her arms above her coiffed head. "Okay, super. But ever since we got to the Digital World you won't even let me do anything! Not even find Hawkmon and Patamon! It's been 'we gotta go here, we have to find this, we have to look for something else', I sucked at _Where's Waldo_, Takeru… I don't want to be playing some freaking real life version when I don't even know what the heck I'm supposed to look for!"

Takeru grunted as he lifted a stone, this one the diameter of a dinner plate but the thickness of twenty of them stacked one atop the other. "Not now, Miyako."

"Then when? I'm not here to be your mascot. I don't know if you're putting on this wounded act to get pity from everyone but it's getting really annoying. Either let me help or I'm going to find the others my way."

_She doesn't even know how important this place is!_ Takeru thought, _And how would she find them when this is our best bet?_

Irritated, Takeru stuck straight up from moving the next boulder. "You wouldn't get it! You weren't here! You weren't one of us!"

"One of you? A wounded teenage boy who can't even stick with his girlfriend and acts like a child at the slightest confrontation! Damn right I'm not!"

"YOU'RE NOT A REAL DIGIDESTINED!" Takeru, his volume caused by a mix of frustration and hurt more-so than anger, but the effect was instantaneous.

She lifted her chin defensively but everything else seemed to droop, her shoulders, her mouth, even her glasses and one of her curls.

"Screw you." Miyako whimpered, dropping her hands limply to her sides as her eyes began to fill with tears, fogging up her large framed glasses.

She turned back to head towards the door and Takeru considered stopping her and apologizing but decided against it. He refrained from moving any more stones until he heard how distant her footsteps got. About ten feet. With the tiniest tilt of his head he watched her settle into an inlet of the stone wall, probably made from Garurumon or Birdramon smashing against a Devidramon. He sighed.

Miyako knew nothing but Hikari's side of the story. He knew he had to understand that the strength of the girls' friendship preceded any codes of relationship secrecy….. but he wished it didn't. This was always a match struck when they fought. It had something to do with Catherine, Hikari was jealous. Or something.

Takeru lifted another small boulder and added it to the growing pile he had created.

The rounded soft corner of thin cardboard poked out from under a pile of dusty, gravelly stones. Takeru's heart leapt. The gritty dust stuck to his hand and clothes and was making each breath difficult.

With that, came memories.

The adrenaline. Chasing Myotismon and… Gatomon through the portal. So much has changed since those days. His eight year old self saw Gatomon with contempt, a childish fear with an adult loathing. But then she became one of their greatest allies. The eighth digidestined's digimon. Hikari's partner.

His eyes began to sting from emotions or the gritty dust, he couldn't tell. "Miyako." He said lowly, a grumble.

"I really don't want to talk to you." She retorted.

TK pulled at the sleeve of his Henley shirt and cleared the grit out of his face. Breathing slowly to calm himself. "You have to understand, what Hikari and I have been through together… I don't think anyone can fully comprehend it, not even us. Our bond is so…" He paused in search of a word. "Transcendent. You have no idea what we had to go through to find her." Takeru felt the thin cardboard in his hand and sighed, pinching it with one hand and then flicking it with the other, over to where Miyako sat. Just like how he and Daisuke flicked paper at each other in class. It sailed through the half-demolished room until it landed a couple feet from Miyako's shoe, her sneaker mismatching the skirt of her purple dress that gathered around the curve of her knee. She picked it up. "Gomamon?"

"It's a card. When we were here before, well… _before _before. We had to find Hikari. We just… didn't know it was Hikari we were looking for."

"I know the story." She said, but it was unclear if she was snapping at him or just urging him on.

"This, years ago, was a huge cavern with stone-Digimon gargoyles. But they could come to life... Devidramon when Myotismon commanded them. You remember Myotismon, obviously?"

"Which one?" Miyako scoffed. How she kept her sense of humour, however cynical it was, somewhat eased Takeru.

"This is just the original one. He wanted to find the eighth child before us, and those stone gargoyles came to life… into digimon, to stop us. God, you have no idea how terrifying it was. These huge stone doors," Takeru motioned up ahead of them at the huge walls the lay in front of them that were blockaded by the remnants of the ceiling and boulders, "Are the gate between worlds. All worlds."

Miyako stood up and slowly walked towards Takeru. "And this." He pointed to the Gomamon card in Miyako's hand. "Is the key."

"The key?"

"Well, rather… a puzzle piece." He crouched down to lift the stone that had sandwiched the card to the ground. One by one he pulled out the other cards, wrinkled and dented and bent… but time-capsuled in the shelter of stones. "One of many."

He took the card back from Miyako and gathered the others in his hand, fanning them out as if he was playing Poker. "We're missing one. But… different arrangements of the cards open different gates to different worlds. Our world, this one, the dark ocean."

"It's like... with the destiny stones! How they were holding all the worlds together and… she took her finger and drew lines in the fine blanket of sand that coated the ground. "Our world, the Digital world, The dark ocean." The words seemed to echo in their minds as they stared at the three lines Miyako drew, with a slight tilt of their heads, their eyes met.

_She has been here._ Takeru thought. _She's a Digidestined._

"And remember about hose other worlds…" Miyako said, "You even said yourself, I remember… there could be hundreds!" She began drawing more and more lines, overlapping and erasing others as she swiped her finger horizontally, drawing a divide between her and Takeru.

"There could be hundreds of different combinations of the cards." Takeru said, looking at the nine cards in his hands.

"No… eighty-one."

Takeru sighed. "I guess without Tai's card we cross out all the worlds that card opened."

"Well, you didn't need that card to find Hikari last time-"

"We're looking for Yamato and the others." Takeru amended, half of him urging this fact, the other half not believing himself.

Miyako stood up. "You're not fooling me, Takaishi. You're embarrassed and pissed that she trusted Ken to go along with her plan more then you. Truth is, you're stubborn. You pretend to be the peacemaker in our group, but you're just as stubborn as Daisuke. Probably more-so. You're in love with Hikari and you want her back. You are going to yell at her and get mad at her for going off without you, but all you want to do is hold her. That's all you've ever wanted to do."

She was right. Or was she? He was fifteen for heaven's sake! He wasn't supposed to be _in love_. All his other friends had girlfriends for a week, made out at parties, had dated 30% of the cheerleaders… But he was half of Takari.

But when he was with her, just them, it didn't seem to matter. Fifteen is just a number. They were infinite.

But was it bad that he wanted to be friends with Catherine?

Miyako slumped into herself and leaned her head back against a smooth boulder, shuffling the nine cards anxiously in her hands. "So are we just gonna play universe nicky-nicky-nine-doors or what?"

Takeru picked up the board, the stars and symbols faded but still present and passed it to her. "We have to think of a pattern. I know what will get us back to the real world but… we need to go somewhere else. To another one of those worlds. To another line."

Miyako began stacking the cards, half listening, into a pyramid on top of the ornamented stone. "Well, what kind of pattern?" She placed the last card on the top of her house of cards and smiled, "I made a castle!"

The card castle collapsed, sending a gush of dust and an echo throughout the room, oddly loud for just nine cards.

But then they lit up. First the cards, then the platform and finally the doors as they began to separate, filling the musty room with a bright blue-white light. The cards illuminating the former pedestal faded, but as they did so, the heavy doors lurched, and the rocks blockading them fell away.

"Is this what happened last time? Miyako asked.

Takeru was about to answer but before he could open his mouth, a seawater wave emerged, curling around the whole door, slithering through the room. As if it was a giant snake, it coiled around the two Digidestined and retracted into its lair with its newly acquired prey.


	26. His Turn To Be Brave

_**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE**_

The line between real and pretend was swirling and curving and blurring. Well, among other things.

Whatever it was doing, it was in no way definite.

_Matt was… or is… real, _Jyou told himself as he paced the dirt floor of his cottage. _But Jim… is not Shin. But he is real? Real… but not Shin. _

"Then why are they identical?" Jyou muttered under his breath, slumping into a wooden bench with a thatched blanket thrown over top.

There was a tap at the window and a fleeting face headed towards the door. Before Jyou could rise to allow his visitor in, **t**he door handle turned and Jim sauntered in. "Thank you for leaving the door open, Doc, I don't think I could wait for you to unlock it like yesterday." He chuckled and observed Jyou's pensive expression. "Who's identical? If you're going to talk to yourself, at least close the windows and be private about it. The last thing we need is the _court doctor_ to be labelled as certifiably insane."

"Oh, uh-" Jyou disregarded most of Jim's rambling logic and quickly let his eyes bounce from wall to wall. "The bookshelves. They're all identical."

Jim nodded slowly, "Yes… because we built them. We weren't about to get fancy, especially when you kept insisting on hammering your fingers every few moments." Jim laughed and left the room, going past one of the heavy sheet curtains that were used as doors.

Jyou examined his fingers. He tried to remember this happening, somewhere in his memory, but it never had. Not to him anyway.

The real and not real argument returned to his mind.

"You want tea?" Jim called from the other room, the kitchen- as Jyou had discovered the night before when he and Jim had returned and he came into the cottage alone, famished.

"No, I'm fine." Jyou called weakly. There was no way he was fine. There was no way any of this was fine. What was he expected to do? Continue this charade of being a legitimate doctor? It was fine when his patient was Yamato who could play along, but what happens when it's someone who genuinely needs medical attention? He wasn't even _in_ medical school, never mind certified to _do _anything!

He had to get home. He needed to return home to where he wasn't in over his head. Or… _that _much over his head. Home where his life wasn't potentially on the line if he didn't know what to do. A bad grade didn't look so bad from this perspective.

"I need to meet with Yama…agesty. Your Majesty the prince." Jyou recovered. He wasn't sure that the meagre town doctor would be on a first name basis with the soon-to-be-king.

Jim pushed back the curtain as he returned into the main room clutching a small, steaming wooden bowl. He scoffed. "Good luck with that. It won't happen tonight, or tomorrow for that matter. Unless you're a rich and pretty girl dying to be his wife."

Jyou could imagine if Taichi was there with him, he'd be suggesting that they raid some girls' closets and go undercover as women to get a meeting with Yamato. Something crazy and foolish and ridiculous. But brave nonetheless. A small smile etched onto his face that had been sullen ever since they'd left the castle the day before. If he did do something like that, he'd never live it down… if they got out of this.

"Maybe once you get officially recruited to the palace as their official court doctor, we'll get an upgrade of living quarters." Jim looked around, a scoff threatening to escape his lips. "We'd need a hell of a carriage to move all your stuff though."

Now it was Jyou's turn to look around. It was true there was a lot of stuff, a small school bus would probably be useful if he'd have to move it all. The "identical" shelves were stacked to the brim with books twice the size of his textbooks and the bookends, when they weren't more books being shoved to fit in the space, were all his fancy gadgets. There was one that looked like an egg beater with the bowl already attached, what on earth could that be?

"Hey, maybe here's our answer!" Jim motioned towards the open window at the sight of three horses trotting past, with the riders cleanly jumping off. Joe shuddered, horses. What if they saw a mouse and started stampeding… right through the walls and knocking down the shelves. That was a mess Jyou surely did not want to clean up.

Oh, it was elephants that are supposedly afraid of mice.

The knock was loud, comparable to one that a landlord or a hefty and aggressive Girl Scout, urgency was definitely evident.

Jim placed his tea on the floor by the bench and rose to greet their guests, but the moment his hand touched the handle, the door burst open.

"WHERE ARE YOU HIDING HIM!" The officer shouted. The red anger in his face was mirrored by the red in his jacket, the shoulders ornamented with gold rope and patches declaring stories of a loyalty and bravery that morphed into vengeance as he tramped through the room and swung a beefy arm into Jyou's chest. The gold fringe on the arms of his jacket swung as if they were attached to the uniform of a baton twirler following a marching band. It was the same uniform that clothed the people who filled the castle Yamato was in, the officers that were so concerned about his health.

Another officer, tall and slender with a full beard, cornered Jim without removing his hands from an awkward cradle-position behind his own back, "Calm yourself, Senta." The smirk on his face indicated he had no true intention of calming his partner down. "Where is he hiding?" The officer asked, calmer than his companion but menacing just the same.

Jim, visibly shaken by the confrontation had to pause in order to maintain his jovial disposition. The effect, however, was dimmed by the clear display of nerves and confusion. "Hiding who? The Doctor is right there with your pal."

"Don't mess with us!" The larger officer commanded, speaking to Jim but with his body and attention still completely on the _Doctor_. Jyou shifted his gaze out the window behind his assailant, Senta, where there were more of these red-robed officers standing in clusters around his house and wandering the streets. The constant dribble of townspeople had diminished as if they were caged in by these circling tigers in red and gold.

"We honestly don't know what you're talking about." Jyou orally stumbled, and Senta followed this with a low threatening noise, a growl.

"You fool!" Senta let the growl evolve into a full scream as he effortlessly tossed Jyou across the room as if he were a sack of rice.

As the house shuttered with the weight of Jyou's impact, Jyou groaned and lifted himself, bracing his back tightly against the wall. Jim's teacup spilled and broke under Jyou's weight, sending a shooting pain up the boy's back. As he replaced his glasses to his face, he could feel his face heating up and his eyesight growing spotty. With two thunderous steps, Senta stood above Jyou, his fist perched level to the boy's sternum… Jyou shuddered, he was facing death or serious injury and all he could think of was the test on the skeletal system he had been preparing for.

"Where is the prince? What ideas did you fill his mind with, you filthy town scum?" Senta bared his thick, peg like teeth and forced one arm to the boys neck, the other not moving from the loaded fist.

"Don't touch him!" Jim gasped, and like a flash of light, he pushed through the slender officer and forced Senta away from the doctor.

As the large officer steadied himself on the wooden couch, he licked his lips and a shiver ravaged Jyou's spine. Compared to the huge Senta, Jim looked like a twig. A brittle, tiny twig with huge glasses.

Jim was working head to steady himself, from either the rush of adrenaline or pain, Jyou could not tell. For a moment Jyou relaxed. Nothing was going to happen. It had been a misunderstanding. These men were trying to do their job and they were distraught since they put so much faith in the prince.

But then Senta bulled towards Jim and as impact was made, Jyou could see Jim's body fold like a sheet on a clothesline. His whole body stiffened as he waited for Senta to back off and let Jim stand up. But Senta didn't stop. He forced Jim, with such impact that Jyou himself had to brace himself, into two of the shelves.

Jyou watched, his eyesight blurring as the bookshelves crumbled, spilling their contents onto the two men. Vials shattered, metal clanged and heavy instruments collapsed onto their mangled bodies.

Jyou was frozen. He waited for Jim to push the shelf off of his body. He waited for some Orendian curse word to emit from the clutter. He waited for movement.

He waited for anything.

"Senta." The other officer said, calmly. No trace of the panic that surged through Jyou's body was evident in even the minutest form on this person.

There was a low growl from the rubble as Senta threw a book across the room, narrowly missing his fellow officer.

Jyou dashed towards the mess and began digging, tossing broken and splintered wood away from the wreckage. Jagged glass was clinging to his skin but the sting went unnoticed by the frantic Jyou, who finally grabbed onto Jim's arm. He shook it.

Nothing.

"Come on Jim, Come on." He fumbled. "Get up, get up!"

He moved another book and there was Jim's face, a broken vial had scratched his cheek and his huge round glasses were mangled and broken into his hair. "Come on Jim, wake up, dammit!" Jyou slapped his face rapidly and softly, as if trying to awaken him from a nap.

He pushed more debris away and lifted Jim's head, gently placing it onto his own lap. He moved two fingers to feel the vein on Jim's neck, desperately waiting for any vibration. Nothing. "Dammit." Jyou said again, this time weaker and the shaking of his body moved into his voice.

"HEY!" Senta shouted. "ANSWER ME!"

Jyou had tuned out their two voices, turning them into buzzing which was drowned out by the ringing in his ears and the pounding in his chest.

"Shut up!" Jyou screamed, his voice shrill and his whole body shaking. "No, no, no…" He moved his fingers to Jim's wrist.

Nothing.

Desperate, Jyou let his head fall onto Jim's chest where he heard only silence. "No… Jim," He lifted himself up and folded his own hands, placing them onto Jim's chest. As he counted and pressed, his eyes began to water. "Come on Jim, wake up. Please Jim."

"WHERE THE HELL IS THE PRINCE!" Senta hollered, hurdling towards Jyou, but without flinching, Jyou got back up and returned to the unconscious body of his friend. Senta, irritated at being ignored, boomed: "CAN'T YOU SEE HE'S DEAD?"

"No… no. He's… He-"

"He's dead." The slender officer reiterated blatantly.

"No, Jim… not Jim… Not… he can't be dead. Wake up!" Jyou clasped Jim's shoulders and shook them. Trying desperately to find something that had left, he shook the empty body. "No… pl-please… Shin. Come back. Shin, don't leave. Please, Shin."

The sobs were audible now as Jyou buried his head into the empty chest that lay, still half buried, in his lap. "No, no, no. Come on, Shin."

"You're going to have to come with us." The platonic officer announced. Senta stood up and stood beside his companion and Jyou shook his head.

"You… you murderer!" He snarled it, a voice that he never thought could come from his own mouth, but he didn't regret it.

"Senta, collect the doctor, please."

At that moment, the fog lifted from Jyou's mental state. He had to fight back, sure he was no match for either of them. But he had to do something. Sure it wasn't as humorous as what he'd thought of earlier, but everything was different now. It was his turn to channel Taichi. It was his turn to be brave. If Yamato did get out of the castle… well, maybe he could find him! Or at least someone else, Taichi or Izzy or Mimi… Jyou froze. What would Mimi think?

She was always clamouring about how she was waiting for prince charming to sweep her off her feet. Well, truth was there was nothing princely or charming about him. But maybe he could get them all home? He wouldn't be doing anyone any good by sitting in a jail cell.

Jyou looked up at the two guards, standing in between the third shelf of equipment and the wooden couch.

"I'll come." Jyou sighed. He stood up, his head bent solemnly as the two officers shared a surprised but triumphant glance as they turned away from their prisoner.

Jyou grabbed the leg of the wooden bench, and with all his might, he lifted it and swung it towards the two guards, sending them crashing into the last standing shelf. Without thinking or bothering to look behind him, Jyou dashed to the opposite side of the room and hoisted himself onto the windowpane and jumped out.

There was no one there. The other towns people had disappeared and the other officers were far off in the distance, so much so that they looked like ladybugs. Harmless.

A loud sound startled him, and as Jyou turned to see the gallant creature behind him, it flashed in his mind like a bolt of lightning, turning a late afternoon sky into a sheet of white. But instead of a blank canvas, Jyou saw the horse. White with a golden mane and tail, tattered charcoal-grey wings jutting on of its back with a crimson mask shielding those cold eyes.

Of course, Unimon was a manifestation of an irrational fear that he'd always carried throughout his childhood. Or so Jyou could picture Koushiro rationalizing.

Again with Unimon.

The inappropriately causal thoughts didn't calm down Jyou's racing heart. He could feel the blood rushing to his head, clouding his ability to think anything helpful. Or to process what just happened.

The other guards were no longer ladybugs and the lessened distance made them look more like red toadstools, still a far distance away from him. Jyou moved slowly and carefully to not alarm any of them to his presence. But everything started playing in his head on a loop. The sight of Jim's closed eyes sent a cold sweat down his neck. No pulse. He was broken.

"Oh God." He gulped as he saw the bookshelf in the cottage move.

The giant golden-white horse whinnied and Jyou let a similar sound escape his mouth, or rather- his nose.

"Nice… Nice horsie." He whispered, holding both hands up defensively, making sure the horse could clearly see him. With his hand shaking as if it had been battery operated, Joe softly touched the giant animal's neck and grabbing the bridal, like he had seen in all the old west TV shows that played on cable.

He could hear a shout from inside his house and in a swift movement, with skill and grace he never imagined he had, Joe hoisted himself up and swung his leg over the horse's muscular body, nudging it with his knee, asking it to start racing through town.

The shouts behind him announced that he had been discovered. The gasps that followed him from the fleeting windows depicted that nothing like this ever happened in this small town. But the sound that screamed the loudest was the silence. The silence that came from a body, still laying with his glasses tangled in his hair and no sound emitting from his chest.


	27. Koushiro's Reasons

Thank you to everyone for all the creat comments last week, especially Helen ess! They made my day and here's a quick update! (To make up for the slowness of the past couple months). I actually wrote this chapter really early on so I'm glad I could put it in here =) Enjoy!

_**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX**_

They walked in silence, both of them.

Koushiro replayed the events that had occurred earlier that evening, "Are you sure this is the place?"__Yamato had asked as he circled the small hut, using his hands to frame his face as he peered inside the glass window.

It was. Or at least based on the instructions that Yamato had recounted to him. Yamato, after all, was the one that had spoken to Jyou… not him.

The windows were all smashed except for one that had been opened enough for Yamato to force his way into the house and open the door for Koushiro. The latter's legs weren't long enough to hoist himself onto the window frame.

The door had been locked from the inside… but the house was empty.

But someone had clearly been there earlier and there had been a struggle. It had been cleaned, messily so, but cleaned. A huge pile of broken furniture and shattered glass had been pushed into the corner. Yamato had sifted through the pile with his foot as Koushiro searched the other rooms.

"He was here. This is his house." Yamato had called to Koushiro, who was transfixed at the small cot in the bedroom.

Yamato had gotten to that conclusion based on a suitcase-like bag that was emptied and mangled in the pile. Shattered glass was stuck to the rough looking fabric and the glass was dyed pink from what they both concluded was blood.

Who would want to hurt Jyou?

The thought stayed in Koushiro's mind the entire time they sifted through the pile of books, broken furniture and shattered contraptions. It didn't leave his mind as they left the house, a sickly smell stinging their noses and the thought of an injured Jyou drowning their minds.

The towns began to thin and a roaring in their ears started to tune out the thoughts of the doctor that washed over their brains.

"A beach?" Yamato asked, finally destroying the silence.

Cradled by the sand, lay a ship, straight out of a storybook. It was, clearly, shipwrecked but glorious nonetheless. The masts were snapped, but giant sails blanketed them as if shielding the broken beams from the last traces of late-afternoon sun. Nobody was on it, or so they concluded before both deciding against going exploring. Their attempt at exploring earlier had brought them a dire response.

"There's a lifeboat totally intact!" Yamato called from the opposite side of the ship. "All the rest are crushed, but this one… it looks fine!"

Koushiro jogged over to where Yamato stood with his arms folded, staring at the small boat as if he was mentally critiquing a piece of art in a museum.

"So? What does that get us?" Koushiro asked. "This is great for firewood… we'll probably need to start something, it's going to be dark soon and I don't even know where we're going to begin tomorrow."

"Why wait for tomorrow?" Yamato asked, unleashing the lifeboat from the mass of chains and rope harnessing it to the giant body of the ship. "We can sleep when we're at home. Safe. With everyone. There must be another point of land that could give us a fresh start. We need-"

"What's that?" Koushiro interrupted, pointing at a carved picture on the boat. Small and simple, barely more than three lines.

With his fingers tracing the lines, Yamato bit his cheek. "It's a needle with thread… or that's what it's supposed to be. There's this huge panel in one of the hallways of the castle with all these little diagrams. I figured out what they mean, by asking random people really subtly worded questions. This means it's from the textile district… I guess that's one of their ships."

"I wonder where everyone went." Koushiro hummed to himself imagining the mass amount of people that must have been sailing on the ship. _And what happened to them._

With a shrug, Yamato began pushing the small boat into the water, ignoring Koushiro's arms waving in protest. "No! Yamato, what good is it going to do us in a boat?"

Grabbing a blanket that fell from one of the half-smashed lifeboats, Yamato shrugged. "More good than it's going to do us sitting here on the beach. If we're going to find everyone, we have to try looking. We've had enough luck getting started, me seeing Jyou and you seeing… Mimi." He remembered the sinking feeling that came when Koushiro reported the current state of her, not even knowing if he could believe it.

"Okay fine, we'll go."

Yamato nodded, not with pleasure over winning the conversation as Koushiro assumed he would, but with a grim knowledge that what they were about to do could end badly. Jyou came to mind again.

xxx

The boat swayed softly and Koushiro ignored the deep sigh that Yamato let out as he lay looking up at the foreign constellations and wondering if they even knew what stars were in this world.

Koushiro had always known Yamato to be the antithesis of Taichi, but the stubbornness and occasional flippancy was always the most noteworthy similarity. That and Sora.

The red-head watched as his small puff of breath turned into a mushroom-cloud of condensation. Yamato, seemingly pleased by this, much the way a six-year-old would be, began experimenting with the shape of his mouth and pressure of his breath creating different shapes with varying density of vapour. This seemingly distracted him for less than a minute until he let out a sigh, ironically creating more vapour than any from his little game had. "How long would you say we've been floating around?"

Judging from the degree of the cramp in his side and the amount of things that had crossed his mind, Koushiro shrugged. "Two hours, maybe three."

The obvious discomfort of the small wooden boat was causing Yamato to be more irritable. He shifted, causing the boat to sway at an almost dangerous angle. Ice-water splashed onto Koushiro's hand. "What time is it?" Yamato whined, seemingly unphased by their close encounter to flipping into the freezing ocean.

"Ten, probably later." Koushiro answered, judging from the elapsed time and the lack of colour in the sky, although the latter mightn't be any proven indication of time passing.

Yamato rolled over, swaying the boat as he did so, onto his stomach. "Do you think everyone's here? Like I've seen Jyou, what about Taichi and Sora?" he paused and added a quick afterthought. "And Mimi. Oh my God she's not even a person. She's not human. Oh my God. Well, we always had doubts, but this is just ridiculous!"

Koushiro stifled an appreciative laugh. "What I think is that we've become versions of the trials we face. Like in my case, how I am so used to working with computers and technology, I'm here with a little bag with pages and pages of handwritten documents written in charcoal. Jyou, ever since we've met him has been unsure if medicine is the right path for him… so forcing him into this life where he is this, as you say, the only science doctor, it's forcing him to make a decision. This is some trial to see if we can overcome our personal flaws. Or what I think, in your case is a lot like Jyou, you don't think you're this Prince Charming at says you are in that magazine."

Yamato didn't reply so Koushiro continued. "You enjoy the attention and fame, but inside you still feel like you're that kid who walked away from the team in the Digiworld to wallow in self-pity. You're the lone wolf, and lone wolves don't rule kingdoms." Koushiro stopped, unsure what to make of the silence coming from the other passenger in the boat. "Yamato?"

"Who do you think you are, Izumi?" He suddenly grumbled, turning over and facing Koushiro with unwashed-denim eyes.

"I- I didn't mean offence, Matt, just stating an observation!" Koushiro held his hands up defensively. He never understood how someone could be one minute so platonic, the next jovial and before you know it look like some digimon with glowing red eyes, holding his fist ready to strike at any moment. Koushiro braced himself for a punch in the face. There was nowhere to run.

"Just shut up, Koushiro." Yamato muttered, his fist falling down to his lap, looking down sullenly.

The both did, in fact, shut up. Koushiro wanted to apologize, but it was like a malfunctioning computer, sometimes you can't put in codes and hacks, sometimes you have to shut it down and hope for the best.

They floated silently along the equally still ocean. The reflection of the moon on the glassy water was the only thing that differentiated the sky from the sea. They were surrounded by darkness. The hostile silence seemed to stretch the seconds into minutes. Everything was distorted and Koushiro could no longer tell, not that he assumed Yamato would ask, what time it was.

"I'm sorry." Yamato finally grunted.

The fact that Yamato, stubborn Ishida Yamato, was the first to break the silence alarmed Koushiro almost as much as the fact that he was _apologizing_. Before Koushiro could collect his thoughts enough to accept Yamato's apology and offer one himself, Yamato began to speak, softly and calmly, but traces of hurt were definitely evident. And Koushiro was not, in the least, observant to feelings. They had to be pretty obvious for him to notice.

"You're right, Izzy. You could have been a bit more tactful, but you pretty much have it. I didn't… want to have this. I liked playing music. I liked playing it with some friends playing theirs with me. So when someone asked us if we wanted to perform and make a few bucks, I said sure, why not? Now I have this whole… alter-ego almost. You know, confident, charismatic, funny, charming… but I'm not. I'm the kid who couldn't even stay with his team when the fate of the world- two worlds actually, depended on it. I had to go and wallow in self pity, as you so delicately put it." Yamato offered a teasing chuckle.

"But you're here now." Koushiro amended.

The blonde looked at the faint outline of Koushiro sitting across from him. The red-head continued: "You were there when Daisuke and the others needed you. When it came down to it, you were there. And I have a theory that this time is a lot like that, we were sent here for a reason. You wouldn't be here if you weren't important. And if you didn't want to be here you wouldn't be sitting in this boat with me now. You got me here. There's a throne back there that you could be wallowing in."

There was another silence, but Koushiro didn't feel the thick hostility this time, it was a weighing of words. "Thanks, Izzy." Yamato finally said.

Koushiro nodded, then realizing the dark might have shielded that, replied, "You're welcome. And by the way, not to sound weird or anything, but you kind of are all those things. You could sell Girl Scout cookies back to the Girl Scout."

"Fish to a fisherman." Yamato said softly, with a laugh of realization. "Thanks, Koushiro."

Before Koushiro could say anything, the boat swayed again, Yamato was tilting to the side. "What are you-" Koushiro started.

"I think," Yamato interrupted, pensively and unsure. "There's an island there?" Koushiro turned around, black. Just black. There was a patch of black that was less reflective of the rest of the dark abyss they were sailing through, but no way to be sure.

"I have a lantern." Koushiro announced.

"Thanks, tips. Why didn't you bring that up like three hours ago?"

Koushiro assumed from the tone of Yamato's voice that he was teasing so he offered a small laugh in return. His backpack, or more- his burlap sack that he had carried around on his back, sat at his feet. With the darkness as his only guide, Koushiro fingered his way through his supplies, a lot of which he had no idea what it was, until he reached the sturdy cold glass. The wick, he felt, was small and required matches. Did they even have matches here?

Koushiro had loyally watched every season of Survivor, flint. He needed flint. Feeling around in his bag looking for either a stone of some sort or a convenient package of matches with an Orendian hotel emblazoned on the outside, or even some primitive barbeque lighter- Koushiro chuckled at his mental joke.

"Shh!" Yamato hissed as he nudged Koushiro's leg.

Koushiro stopped rustling in his bag to listen. Silence, the sound of their boat pushing through the water and the breaths of himself and Yamato. "There's noth-" Koushiro started.

But then there was. A melon-sized bubble came up through the water in front of them. Koushiro slowly and silently resumed feeling each item in his bag, without disturbing any of the surrounding objects. Another bubble. Bubbles meant that air was somehow being forced to the surface… air created by movement, or breathing.

And then a splash. "Mermaid Mimi…" Yamato hummed, almost hopefully. "What could be next, Daisuke the Loch Ness Monster?"

This time, Koushiro was the one to kick Yamato's outstretched leg, "Shh!" he whispered, almost pleading. Another splash and Koushiro's hand clasped two rocks in a small velveteen bag. He pushed the lantern towards Yamato who held it, squinting and facing the opposite way as if the flint would create a flamethrower out in his direction. Koushiro didn't even know if this would work, could flint catch onto a single candle wick? Was this even flint?

A shrill scream seemed to echo off the water, Koushiro shuddered and jumped, a spark flew out but missed the wick. A loud gasp, the water and the need for air seeming to make it louder than it should have been. Another spark missed the lantern altogether. Koushiro suddenly thought of how unsafe this was to do in a tiny wooden boat in the middle of an ocean. Well, there was no shortness of water to put out a fire if it came to that. Another spark, this one landing on the wick, causing it to slowly turn orange, and then a small flame grew. Yamato closed the glass lantern door as the shrill scream sounded again, this time with words, "I HATE YOU, TAKERU TAKAISHI! I HOPE YOU DROWN HERE!"

The glow from the lantern shone on Yamato's face, his shock emphasized by the wavering flicker of the flame. He leaned over his friend's shoulder and Koushiro could feel the other boy shaking. The light first caught that, in fact, there was an island, beside which were two bobbing heads, the first with a trail of lavender coloured hair forcing the other, a blonde, under the water.


	28. Shaky Hands

_A/N: I meant to upload this the other night but my timed internet ran out :S Anyway, better late than never ;) Hope everyone is having a great summer!_

_Thanks to everyone for reading, especially helen ess, Shara Raizel, Sweet Cari, Mitchie Love, and RoyalKnight with their wonderful messages :D I always look forward to hearing from you guys! It really helps me out to know your thought process and what you think when/ after reading :)_

_This is a really long chapter but a lot had to happen, so I hope you enjoy it :D_

* * *

_**CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN**_

The town was abandoned, that was obvious. They could have picked any of the small huts to spend the night and would have disturbed no one but mice.

But they would not be spending the night in cottages like last night.

Sora twisted a loose strand of unpeeled-carrot coloured hair around her finger as she stared at the horizon that blended ocean into sky. It was well into the night, but according to Wallace… or Willis, that would be the best time for them to travel.

They'd finally reached it.

Sitting, or moreso, taking command of the ocean lay a ship. Grand, noticeably so even in the faint light the moon reflected on the inky water and the lantern that Willis sat down on the sand beside him.

"I'm not going to pretend I know what the story is, why you insisted on retrieving them without the intention of finding their ship and…" Willis, who was speaking directly to Taichi, cut himself off, glanced at Catherine who stood at his side, shivering gently. The lantern picked up the traces of blush that crept onto the boy's face, and he stopped himself. "The crew, however, will not be able or willing to do the same. I hope you are prepared to have some explanation for them."

Taichi shrugged, tugging at his long dark-blue captain's jacket that he sported. It was regal, and almost as ornate as Sora's own dress. He, as promised, had been relatively quiet during the walk. Sora knew part of it was because he got cranky when he was tired, moreso than any guy she knew.

"Well, then I have one." Willis announced as he motioned towards Sora and Taichi.

xxx

When they finally boarded the ship, the four digidestined, only two knowing they were as such, were greeted. Pleasant hello's or waves were replaced by hoots, hollers and many other rowdy noises from men, half of which were being woken up as others ran past them.

"Captain!" They rejoiced and Sora could tell Taichi was glowing in the appreciation.

All noise stopped as Willis and Taichi helped first Catherine, and then Sora onto the ship.

The first noise was one of dissention. "Why are their heads not detached?"

Sora autonomously reached for her neck and some of the pirates snickered.

Taichi looked at her apologetically, and then to Willis who edged him on with a firm nod.

"Men!" He cried, a leader getting the attention of those who would dutifully throw their lives on the line if he asked. "Do you not wish for the attention of a woman? Do you not miss the-" his voice that had began so unwaveringly, broke. It was awkward, even in practice on the beach. "The feeling of waking up beside a woman?"

Taichi was eighteen, and Sora knew full well the only _woman_ he'd woken up beside was his sister, Hikari. Not including herself and Mimi in the digital world.

There was a murmur rushing through the crowd, it appeared they did.

"I am your Captain! And as so, I have," _Actually, it was Willis who did_, Sora mentally interrupted. "-Declared myself in need of companionship, aside from you brutes!"

A rush of laughter trickled through the crowd. Conversation picked up, words of agreement and no arguments ensued. Inaudible to all but herself, Catherine and Willis, Taichi let out a relieved sigh.

"What about the blonde?" An invisible voice shouted. "I am in need of some companionship too! Heh!" The voice crackled and sounded as if it belonged to a 65-year-old female smoker.

Catherine winced.

Before Taichi could step up with the extension of their story, Willis spoke up, angry.

"_Princess_ Sora is in need of care. Do any of you _brutes_ want to be waiting on her hand and foot?"

Silence.

Satisfied, Willis backed down. He nodded towards his Captain and the two of them began to walk through the mass gathering of pirates who split like the red sea for them to pass.

Sora followed Taichi through the crowd, and a thick arm grabbed her wrist. "Hey girly, if you get bored with the Captain-"

Before the gruff pirate could continue, the still-sheathed sword briskly, angrily landed on the thick hairy wrist.

"Don't you _dare_ speak to her like that." Taichi breathed venomously. The stout pirate backed away, stuttering apologies.

"Listen up!" Taichi belted, lifting his body onto the higher platform. "If anyone _even thinks_ of touching her, speaking to her with anything but respect, and if I notice one hair out of place, or anything for that matter… someone's going to pay. They will be without a job, potentially without limbs before another thought enters their foul minds! Oh, and their swimming skills will be thoroughly tested." He motioned towards the ocean, any trace of joviality completely wiped from his unshaven face. "You will treat her-and Catherine," he added as an afterthought, motioning towards the named blonde, "-with respect. I don't know if you lot are capable of respect, but you better learn fast. And you _will not_, under any circumstances, treat her differently because she's a girl. Respect her as if she was your mother, but treat her like she's your brother."

There was silence. Willis' mouth turned up in a smirk that was interrupted by a loud shout from above them. The crow's nest, if Sora remembered correctly.

Taichi grabbed a telescope that was handed to him immediately. Faintly noticeable, running onto the beach was a blur, and if Sora focused, the blur turned into a horse.

Their captain gasped and clutched Sora's shoulder as he, himself ran back down the still-extended ramp as fast as if he had been playing an aggressive game of soccer.

Sora watched as a figure tumbled from the horse, and as the large beast galloped back into town, the figure remained hunched over on the sand.

Willis ordered that everyone to return to work and Catherine took Sora aside, oblivious to what had just happened. "Have you noticed the way he looks at you?" Catherine asked, a sparkle in her eye. "William, or Willis, told me that as soon as he saw some portrait of you, he could speak of nothing but finding you. It's so romantic, we may never get to the ball but I wouldn't mind being a pirate!" She giggled and Sora sunk onto a bench, that a nearby pirate had immediately wiped down with his headscarf. She smiled appreciatively and he nodded.

She wondered what the painting looked like. The long hair, no doubt. Part of her wished she had the ability to show Yamato, wouldn't he love to see her with long hair? But that was not truly her, was it?

"And that speech he made in front of all the crewman!" Catherine's accent caressed all the words as she spoke. "He managed to get _pirates _to treat us, specifically you, like a lady but an equal." She beamed as if she were a mother bragging about her son who was simultaneously on the football team and honour roll.

"And he is very handsome." Catherine giggled as if she were a preteen girl talking about some untouchable upperclassman.

That had always been undeniable, maybe Sora had been a little tough on him. Maybe it was time they just forgot the past and moved on, maybe as friends and maybe as-

_I have Yamato._ She had to remind herself.

"Sora!" the emotion in Taichi's voice carried up the ramp that he was still climbing. "Sora, get some blankets, Willis, show her where they are! Food too!"

Willis lead Sora to a supply closet, piling her arms with a blanket and a knock on the door revealed another pirate, although differently dressed, with some prepared fish. It made Sora's stomach grumble. She was starving.

The two pirates opened the door for her and as she emerged, arms full, Sora had to brace herself not to drop the contents of them. Leaning on Taichi, weak and the only thing that let her believe he was conscious were his trembling in his hands, was Jyou.

Their friend, not answering any questions or even managing to move, save his trembling hands was escorted up to the upper balcony.

"Did he say anything?" Sora finally spoke, asking Taichi.

He shook his head. "He looked surprised to see me, but it was more like… a deer in headlights rather than, you know, a guy seeing someone he knew in some strange alter-universe." His voice was low, a casual whisper that couldn't be heard by any of the crewmen who had returned to their posts.

"He looks awful." Sora was worred. Jyou looked like he'd seen a ghost; well, actually she had been with him when he had seen several ghosts and at least then he had reacted. Comically so, looking back.

There was nothing comical about their friend looking terrified, emotionally emaciated.

"Jeez, I wonder what happened." Taichi mused sullenly as they gazed at the overhanging balcony where Jyou had been settled forlornly in the corner. Taichi tried to force a grin but it was almost painful to watch. "I would have thought he'd object, complaining about getting sea sick, scurvy or something."

Sora suddenly remembered the blanket and food that she held, and climbed the steps to bring them to her friend.

He didn't acknowledge her when she approached him. He didn't reply when she greeted him and truthfully spoke of how she was so glad to see him. He didn't register her touch as she draped the canvas blanket over his slowly steadying shoulders.

Jyou wouldn't speak. He opened his mouth only to put the small pieces of fish and chew them far more than need be. Sora didn't say anything. What could have happened to leave Jyou speechless? Had something happened to one of their friends? She opened her mouth to ask, but decided against it. If it had, he would tell them when the time was right. He avoided meeting her gaze and she adjusted the blanket over his lean shoulders. She went back in her mind to the time that the two of them had been in Bakemon's village together, their verbal exchanges, or exchanges of any sort had grown fewer and fewer in the passing years, but there were scarce amount of people she trusted more than him. And that didn't waver with any amount of time that passed.

"I know this is crazy, Jyou." She started, reaching for the bluntly cut ends of her hair. "It's all just some messed up crazy adventure. But we're gonna get through it. We've found each other, and we've all seen some messed up stuff that we probably didn't think poissible before this but… I'm glad you're here. You've always been reassuring for me." She pulled the long skirts under her crossed legs and smiled despite his inattention. "Like, who ever knew what ridiculous thing Taichi was going to get us to do, sometimes Matt wouldn't be with us, Takeru was small and Koushiro often took mental trips to computer land. But you were there. You lived up to your crest, if not for all of us, then always for Mimi, who probably needed you most. No matter what happens Jyou, in this crazy world and back in our own, probably equally crazy one, I'm here whenever you need a friend. No matter what happens around us, that's never gonna change. I promise."

His face didn't waver, but he lifted his hand gingerly and placed it on her knee, gently and before she could react, he retracted it back underneath the blanket.

She smiled, relieved that her voice was somehow reaching him as his and Yamato's did when she had been trapped in the darkness during the fight with LadyDevimon. The still but agreeable silence that reached between the two souls was yanked away by a rush of commotion on the ships lower deck. Sora rose, tenderly adjusting the blanket tighter over Jyou's shoulders and rushed to the balcony and down the cascading steps to where Taichi stood with Willis, conversing with two other crewman.

"What's going on?" She interrupted.

One of the pirates with Taichi looked to his captain for approval and he nodded assent. "We've gone off course. Instead of following the coastline, we've been swept further and further out. Because of those unpredictable tides and waves-" Sora heard Willis mutter something about stones before their shipmate could proceed, "It's probably best to stay out here in deep waters than risk being swept ashore, fatalities are almost certain."

"Agreed." Taichi placed a firm hand on the speaker's shoulder. "You're doing good work. Come find me if there's any news."

Sora tried to stifle a yawn, which Willis caught. "Catherine is sleeping in the kitchen workers' bunkhouse. It might be best for… appearances if you return to the captains room with Taichi."

Both Sora and Taichi's heads quickly bobbed upright as if they were floatation devices forced under water and then released.

"To-together?" Sora mustered.

Taichi, letting out a less than subtle breath reassured her, "It's alright, I just sleep in a hammock, there's probably another one for you."

Willis gave Taichi a questioning look. "You only slept in the crew's quarters because of the draft in your room. I've been assured it is repaired now."

Sora tried her hardest to avoid Taichi's gaze, feeling her face heat up and hoped neither boy noticed.

"Appearances." Willis repeated and Taichi slipped his hand into Sora's.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, and the words were filled with honesty. Yamato was still his best friend, despite what had occurred between the three of them. As much as he mocked and resented the relationship between Sora and Yamato, Sora knew he would never purposely try to endanger it.

Sora squeezed his hand, warm and gentle but strong. Like she remembered.

This was going to be a long night.

They walked down the corridors of the ship together, the approving glances from the other pirates came with winks and nudges to one another. Sora's face went hot again and again.

"This must be it." Taichi said, stopping at a door at the end of the hallway that went under the overhead balcony.

"Atta boy, Captain!" a jeer came from down the hall. Taichi winced.

The room was elegant, a full plush bed, almost out of place on a pirate ship. But the ship had proved to be so magnificent that this did not come as much of a surprise to Sora.

A nightgown lay on the four poster bed.

"I wont look… I'm going to sleep on the floor." He said nobly, although Sora could tell there were undertones in his voice, hoping she would object.

"Okay." She said simply.

Her loyalty lay with Yamato.

So how could she lay with Taichi?

He turned around, like a child sent to time out as she began to unlace herself from the dress. It no longer looked as elegant as it once had. The walking had sent an upheaval of dust over the skirts, which resting had only worsened. Rips now decorated it as much as beading did and the corset had loosened from wear.

"It's one of my regrets, you know." He said finally, splicing the awkward silence that filled the room.

"What is?" She asked, finally loosening the laces in her dress enough to let it fall to the ground. She slipped the gauzy nightgown over her head and turned back around to face Taichi, still leaning his face into the wall.

She watched the muscles in his back, his arms, his neck tense. "Nevermind."

Her instincts told her not to press, but she did so anyway. "Tell me."

"Not putting a label on it, on us."

Now it was time for Sora's muscles to tense. "Taichi… _you promised!_"

"Are you decent?" He ignored her.

She grunted a positive answer and he turned around, faced her and their faces were so close. She could see the small spot under his chin where the bristles of his overgrown stubble didn't cover and for a moment, she thought he would kiss her.

He didn't.

Was she disappointed?

He turned away and Sora was ashamed of herself. Her feelings were conflicting- boiling over and she had no way to contain them.

"Taichi…" She whispered.

He turned around expectantly, innocently.

She slapped him across the face.

"WHAT WAS THAT FOR!"

"You broke your promise." She replied simply.

Before he could reply, there was an urgent knock at the door. "Captain!" The voice was muffled by the thick wood, but the urgency was not dimmed.

Taichi walked across the room, clutching the cheek that Sora had slapped and opened the door.

"Wha-"

"Come quick! The nets… the fishermen… come quick!"

Without a second thought, Taichi tore off his heavy Captains coat and tossed it at Sora who pulled it on over her light nightgown. She rushed to keep up with the two young men who raced through the ship, back up to the deck.

Most, if not all of the crew was crowded over the balcony, overlooking the dark waters. The sun was beginning to rise and by the light that began to dissolve into ocean, Sora looked for Willis' blonde head. He was front and center, and Taichi was rushing towards him.

"What's going on?"

Sora pushed through the men, who stepped away to let her pass. She looked at what Willis was holding, a fishing net.

_So?_

She looked closer and noticed a huge rip in the ropes that held the net together. "What could have done that?" One of the crewmen spoke the words on her mind.

"I'm not crazy!" Another man, clutching Willis' arm spoke loudly, his body rocking back and forth. "You all saw her too!"

"Saw what?" Sora finally spoke.

"A siren! She was! A siren! A mermaid!" The swaying man spoke each word as if they were choking him.

"LOOK!"

By the misty light that rose from the horizon, they saw a small island with a gazebo in the center. A dainty figure lay on the side, half submerged in water, her small shoulders trembling with what looked like she was sobbing or breathing heavily. No, she wasn't sobbing, she was catching her breath.

Something in Sora's stomach lurched as she saw, from the corner of her eye, Jyou weakly stand from the corner.

"I've got a pistol!" A heavily bearded man bellowed as he elbowed his way through the crowd. Before anyone could object, he fired at the distant figure and missed, but just by a few feet. The impact must have shocked the girl, -the mermaid?- as she turned around and even from the great distance separating them, Sora could see the contours of the girls face, the hair streaked with pink that fell around her bare shoulders. The man fired again and the scream left Sora's lips before she was conscious of it. The bullet skinned its target and released a spray of red that left the girl's arm.

Before Sora could scream the words she wanted to, the mermaid dove under the water and the crew all took the last fleeting look at a lime-green tail disappearing beneath the surf.

Sora could do nothing. The crew was silent and she saw Taichi's face register the same look of shock, of doubt, of horror. She didn't need to look back up at Jyou to know he wore it too, the knowledge that she knew was displayed in every motion, every facet of her body.

They'd shot Mimi.


	29. Wide Awake

_I can't even begin to describe how happy I am that you are all enjoying this fic so far :D A few people found me from FYDD, and I'd just like to thank you guys for taking the time and giving my story a shot! It means so much 3 Thank you to ThatsWhatSheSaid07 , Light's Blue Blossom, Tanya Takaishi Shara Raizel , Mitchie Love and Sweet Cari for your reviews on the last chapter! I love getting them, so it truly means a lot If anyone has any questions, the easiest/ quickest way to reach me is by my tumblr: little—star. Thank you again for everyone who has been reading, whether you just started or it's been all along. You are all wonderful 3_

_This one is kind of a break from the crazy, long ones that have happened for the past couple chapters… but there are a few more of those on the way ;) ENJOY :D_

* * *

_**CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT**_

The dim, flickering light emanating from Koushiro's lantern sent shadows across the stone walls. Miyako stared at them, wishing for them to transform into monsters, into evil Digimon, because then… at least she would know where she was.

They had explained it, Koushiro and Yamato, but it just didn't make any sense. Orenda, they called it. A different world. Different from home, from the Digi-world, or even the Dark Ocean that Ken and Hikari were tied to. This was a whole 'nother ball game.

Everything happened so fast, it was all still a blur. One second she and Takeru were in that creepy destroyed castle where the gates opened, and the next thing she knew… they were in the ocean with the two older boys looking at them as if _they_ were the ones wearing the Ye Old Clothing.

The four of them had rowed back to shore, hours of listening to the two of them talk about this world that belonged in some sort of storybook instead of them belonging in it. Apparently Yamato was a prince or something, and Koushiro was some kind of medieval scientist. Miyako didn't even know if she could call this world medieval, it wasn't like they time travelled. Because, as far as she knew, mermaids didn't exist at any time in the real world. But sure enough here, not only did they exist… Mimi was one.

_What the hell,_ she thought, almost aloud.

Apparently the older kids' plan of action was to find each other, which was admirable, but they weren't doing a heck of a job. As it stood, they had gathered two out of six, and while they claimed to have "found" Mimi and Jyou, Mimi not only had gotten away but wasn't even human, and Jyou's house had been ransacked with evidence of blood. She asked if there had been any sign of Ken or Hikari, and gotten a negative response. The group was further apart in this world than they were in their own. Good thing Takeru and her arrived, it looked to Miyako like they needed some serious help. And although they weren't exactly what the doctor ordered, maybe the two younger Digidestined were their only hope.

Miyako sighed, curling herself tighter into the burlap blanket that Koushiro had given her. How she longed for fleece, even cotton. Actually, she just wanted to go home. It was cold, even with the blanket and although the water had undone her hair, the salt had left it crunchy. Everything was uncomfortable.

But it was quiet. She didn't have to listen to anything but the ravaging thoughts in her head, nothing competing with them aside from Yamato's faint snoring and Koushiro's tossing and turning. Takeru was sprawled out beside his brother and looked about half his age.

_How could he have said that to her? _

The sky had turned the grey that bookended a sunrise when their small boat hit land. Rocks, actually. The rocks went spread out, not for long, until they began to slant upwards into a mountain. It had been Koushiro's brilliant plan to climb it and use the mountain as a higher vantage point to see as much of the land as they could.

They had climbed for hours. Miyako hadn't wanted to speak, but had so much to say. The whole situation was uncomfortable. When the pink of sunrise had completely erased any glimpse of gray, they had stopped to rest in the long stone cavern. None of them had slept in over twenty-four hours.

Miyako still hadn't slept, four hours later.

Sure, she'd rested her eyes and zoned in and out, but she was still aware of every movement of the boys, every thought of her own, and every concern that the four of them shared.

She gathered up the stiff blanket and moved outside to the mouth of the cavern. They were nowhere near the top of the mountain, but still quite a ways from the base. It would be a long walk either way. Neither of which Miyako looked forward to, she was still hoping for a magic portal to open with a flashing neon arrow telling her it was the way home.

Nothing was impossible anymore, anyway.

The sun depicted mid-morning, the sky was clear except for a faint blue glow coming from above her. Not from the sky, but from the top of the mountain. Miyako craned her neck to see what was up there, a lighthouse?

"Are you awake, Miyako?"

Koushiro came out of the cave, the question rehthorical.

Miyako scoffed, "Brilliant idea last night, lets climb the mountain so I can freeze to death. If this was your master plan you should have left me in the ocean to drown."

"At least you had a blanket. Yamato is so warm and Takeru is using him as a space heater. I was considering moving closer but then I noticed you were gone."

"Is Yamato sick?"

"Nah, I guess he's just more hot-headed than we surmised. What are you looking at?"

Miyako pointed up to the light and Koushiro frowned. "There's one down there too." Miyako let her gaze follow where Koushiro was pointing, miles and miles away in what seemed to be a field, a pinkish-red light glowed.

Miyako was no longer cold. She was more than warm, if she'd closed her eyes maybe she would have felt like she was laying out at the beach on a particularly hot summer's day. But she couldn't close her eyes. Too much was happening. And if she closed her eyes, she feared she would finally fall asleep. She needed to be aware of everything.

The blanket that hung around her shoulders dropped, without Miyako really noticing and Koushiro grabbed it, looking for approval before wrapping it around himself and settling down.

"Do you see the castle?" He asked.

Before she could look, he continued, "It should be on the other side. We entered from the east, the wheat fields are to the south, and the castle's north. I think that's where we should go. It's the center of the continent. From what I saw of the Orendian maps, it's just one giant continent. We'll have to walk for a while, maybe we can find some horses or some other way to travel quickly. Something tells me that the center of the continent is a good place to meet up."

"Any oceans there? Mermaid swimming holes?" Miyako asked, almost bitingly.

Koushiro rolled his eyes. "Well, that's another problem but we'll face it when we get there. We might as well find everyone else with legs first."

The rise and fall of her lavender head signified agreement.

"Is something going on with you and Takeru? I know I usually stay out of these things but if it's only the four of us we're going to need everyone on good terms."

"I dunno… I guess we're just worried about Ken and Hikari." The truth. Almost.

"And that's it?" He asked, sounding almost as if he was regretting the words he spoke.

"He said I wasn't a real Digidestined."

Koushiro raised his eyebrows incredulously but didn't speak.

"I know, I can't believe it either."

"That's not what I'm surprised about." He replied, pulling his folded legs closer to himself. "I'm surprised you'd let that bother you, never mind _believe_ him."

"Well, I mean he has a point. There's so much you guys did that Daisuke, myself and the others can't even fathom. We look like a bunch of pretenders next to the real deal."

Koushiro shrugged. "There were times we felt like that too. Hikari didn't join us until after we defeated some really powerful Digimon, lost a few good friends and we'd all grown so much. That doesn't make her less of a Digidestined. Not to mention how many times we split up, Yamato probably faced Digimon that I don't even know about, Sora went through things all on her own that we probably only know minimally about. We all have our battles. We all went through so much and so did you guys. We will never truly understand what it was like for Ken, or what it was like for you guys before and after he joined you. Us older Digidestined had a taste, a couples times when we'd come and help… but we could step out whenever. The world depended on you. Miyako, you're as much of a Digidestined as Takeru, myself and any of us. It has nothing to do with the shape of your Digivice, the battles you fought or how many evil digimon you faced. What matters is that the Digiworld called you and you answered. You lived up to your crests and you were there for Hawkmon and your team. So now, like the Digiworld, Orenda has called us for whatever reason. And we have to find out why and how we're supposed to save it. We're the Chosen Children, after all."

He grinned, but it was one laced with layers of subtext that Miyako could feel had a tiny of resentment buried underneath.


	30. Darkness

A million thank you's to The Silent Insomniac , Helen ess, ThatsWhatSheSaid07, , Tanya Takaishi, Sweet Cari and Mitchie Love for their amazingly kind words on the last chapter =) So this one is… different. It was probably the hardest to write so far so I hope you enjoy it! It helps tie the whole thing together a bit more, connecting back to the show and even a reference to the WonderSwan games! If you aren't familiar with those or Ken's backstory and would like a bit of background before diving into this chapter I recommend searching "Digimon Adventure 02: Tag Tamers" on the Digimon Wikia site. It's not necessary, but if you like having some background, that's the page that I found the most useful.

ANYWAY, this is Chapter 29 and the 30th including the Prologue, which is super exciting and I'm so happy to have gotten this far and that everyone seems to be enjoying it!

As I said, this was a kind of tricky one to write so I'd really love to hear your thoughts! =) BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY: ENJOY! :D

_**CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE**_

"The sun is starting to come up," Ken heard Hikari say softly but he didn't react. "Or it's getting a slightly lighter shade of gray than it was before." She added and he rolled his eyes.

"There's no sun in this place, hence the _Dark_ Ocean." Ken replied bitingly. It came out wrong. He didn't mean to sound so… mean.

But he was tired. And hungry. God, he didn't remember ever feeling this hungry before. They'd been in this cave for, or what they thought to be, three days. The only way to discern the passing of time was by the lightness of the hazy gray mist (what Hikari referred to as the sun) that filtered through the cave, miles and miles and miles long, it seemed. Unending.

The lunch bag his mother had packed for the train ride was just that, for the train ride. Even his overbearing mother who always took every potential mishap into account hadn't considered he would have been trapped in a dark cave for three days. Hikari and him had split the sandwich, and had taken turns drinking from the Dasani water bottle. They were saving the fruit snacks for the last possible moment.

The only thing separating them from starvation was the promise of fruit snacks.

Ken had good reason to be cranky.

Hikari, still wearing the blazer that he'd given her as a blanket over top of her pea-coat cleared her throat, gently, as if she was dipping her toes in before jumping into especially turbulent waters. "You know what's a bit… strange?"

The fact they had been walking for three days. That they hadn't toppled over from starvation or exhaustion. That Ken had joined her in the first place.

That he couldn't seem to rid these negative thoughts from his mind.

"What?" he replied simply.

"There are no… Digimon here."

He began to give a retort, they weren't in the Digital World. Why would there be Digimon in the Dark Ocean? But she interrupted him before he could even begin.

"Weren't there Digimon when you came here?"

Ken tried to remember. The scars from the dark spore still were ropes around those memories, holding them captive. "No." He said simply.

"Not even… Divermon or… what about your…-" She paused and sighed, "-The Airdramon. They all had dark spirals."

"I've never seen Digimon here, never mind slap dark spirals on them!" Ken snapped. "Trust me, the only Digimon I made my slaves were contained to the Digital World. Even I had some sort of messed up boundaries. Or maybe I just wasn't that good of an evil genius, after all. I DON'T REMEMBER."

Hikari froze and her voice lowered. "Are you okay?"

Ken felt something lurch in his throat. "I don't know. I feel weird."

Hikari tentatively put a comforting hand on his shoulder, great… she was scared of him now. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I just want to figure things out."

Ken nodded and Hikari removed her hand and continued walking. Ken didn't know if she felt it too, but there was definitely something coming up. It was almost as if there was a force reaching out and grasping his very soul. He took a deep breath in, inhaling and exhaling several times before speaking with Hikari. Something was wrong with him but he didn't want to alarm her. What could she do anyway? It wasn't like they could turn around and start walking back, they would surely starve to death that way.

"What's that?" She interrupted before he could attempt to rationalize the Digimon.

He retrieved his phone from the duffle bag he'd been carrying. Obviously there was nothing even close to phone reception in here but the screen offered a bit more light than the faint mist did.

In front of them, in the middle of the cavernous tunnel was a statue, a stone… he knew exactly what it was but the word almost taunted him. Ken shivered, causing the electronic stream of light to sway. "What does it mean?" Hikari asked, unsure whether to go closer or to stay away. "It almost looks like a-"

"DigiEgg." Ken finished for her. In fact, that's exactly what it looked like. The DigiEgg of Darkness. It felt like a lifetime ago, and truly… it was.

The memories were still fogged over from the remnants of the dark spore so it was like watching an old film reel through waxed paper. All that was clear were moments, brief and fleeting, but the feelings were so strong. Pain, confusion, frustration.

Back when he was first told he was a Digidestined, back when he was with… who was he? Ryo? And Wormmon, his first adventure with Wormmon before his days as the Emperor. They had found pieces of these mysterious DigiEggs, one of them being this very one that haunted him now. His heart seemed to slow and his body felt colder. This feeling was too eerily familiar. The worst kind of déjà vu.

While the one before had been the size of a half-deflated soccer ball, this one would probably reach up to his waist if he went close enough. It was like a tree, the trunk: white bones reaching up with claw like branches grasping a spherical orb. The only thing that didn't fit was an inscribed golden ring that hung around the glowing blue sphere.

"But bigger," Hikari was still speaking, and Ken quieted his thoughts to listen to her. Or pleaded for her to speak louder in order to drown out the fears that started coursing through every nerve of his body. "And the ring… it's almost like the ones that were on the Destiny Stones!"

This jolted Ken into another round of thoughts, but he voiced these aloud. "There were seven Destiny Stones… they were meant to hold the very fabric of the Digital World together. When they were being destroyed, Digimon started appearing in the real world."

Hikari paused, seemingly taken aback by Ken's sudden burst of words. "So, maybe they're not just what holds the Digital World together, maybe they are what keep all the different worlds separate. Maybe the damage caused to the Digital World was what allowed the Divermon to appear in this world."

"Yes! Maybe BlackWarGreymon destroying the Destiny Stones in the Digital World didn't just have repercussions in that world, but in every one?"

She paused, and by the still present light of Ken's cell phone he saw the girl fold her arms and tighten the blazer around her ribs. So he wasn;t the only one feeling the chill emanating from this stone. She shivered and Ken realize it was not because of the temperature but because of realization. "What if what we're looking at is a Dark Ocean Destiny Stone?"

It made sense. A lot of sense. The Digiegg of _Darkness_ being a guardian of the _Dark_ Ocean. Maybe it even explained why Ken kept getting called back here. He had found the Digiegg of Darkness, carried the Dark spore, made the Dark Rings and Spirals.

He was doomed to a life of Darkness following him wherever he went.

Hikari didn't notice the sudden spirit had deflated from Ken just as quickly as it had entered him. She rambled on, pacing with her hands folded together. "What if every world has Destiny Stones? There were seven, right? There were Seven Wonders of the Ancient World in ours. Everyone says there was something kind of supernatural about how they came to be and how amazing they were. What if that's it? What if they weren't just tourist attractions? What if that's what keeps our world in one piece? And now only the Giza Pyramid is in tact. What if that's why there's been all these natural disasters, Ken? The earthquakes, and floods and tsunamis… maybe that's a bit farfetched but, oh Gosh, I just can't help thinking this is all related."

She stopped abruptly and rested her hand against the stone wall she was closest to, using it as a lead to the ground where she settled, pulling her knees to her chest. Her voice turned into a whisper. "Maybe this is what we were meant to see, Ken? We needed to figure out the Destiny Stones. They're not in the Digiworld, Taichi and the others, that just doesn't seem right. If it was the Digiworld, why didn't we get taken there too? It just makes no sense. So _another world?_" She no longer seemed to be speaking to him, but herself. But however disjointed or random her thoughts were, they made perfect sense to him._ "_What if they are in some other world and the Destiny Stones there are being destroyed and, just like how the Digimon appeared in our world, this other world did the reverse and took the people from our world. I mean, it's probably unlikely that people who have travelled to multiple words are in large supply, nevermind people who have saved those worlds. Maybe this world brought our friends to it, hoping they could save that world. Maybe somehow universes know they're in trouble and this one just happened to know who could save it."

"It makes sense, in theory."

"_In theory_ is all we have. I really feel strongly on this, Ken."

"Well, what do we do now?"

In the dimming light of his cell phone and the foggy mist that still filtered through the cave, Ken saw Hikari reach for a stone as she stood. Before Ken could even wonder what she was going to do with it, she took a step towards the giant DigiEgg of Darkness, but as if she had been fired from a cannon, Hikari went sailing backwards into Ken.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"Getting us out of here!" Hikari managed, out of breath from the shock and the fall. "But it won't let me near it."

"I noticed." Ken snorted. Why was he being so rude and sarcastic? He helped her up to make up for it.

She reached out the rock enclosed in her palm to try again but Ken stopped her.

"It's the DigiEgg of Darkness. It won't let you near it because you're Light. You have the crest of Light. It's the only thing that can defeat Darkness, so of course it's using all its power to keep you away."

"But- How did-"

Ken offered a weak smile. "I had my time as a Digidestined before you met me."

"You have the crest of Kindness, it's not going to let you near it either. Kindness is one step away from Light!"

Ken shook his head and swallowed, with difficulty. It felt like his throat was closing from fear and a mix of something else. The words barely made it out.

"Being kind and gentle isn't enough. Those traits are the most easily overpowered by those who are evil. By darkness."

The words weren't his own. Wormmon and even Osamu had spoken a version of them to him when he was young. But darkness seemed to find him, whether he was strong or not. He took the rock from Hikari and made a weary step towards the golden ring and as he awaited the force-field to stop him, it did not. A cold breeze moved through his hair and he could no longer hear Hikari's voice or breath, which had been the only sound accompanying their footsteps that he'd heard for days. It was completely silent aside from the blood pumping in his ears and his heart pounding in his chest. He lifted the rock when he came to the ring and smashed it as hard as he could onto the shiny gold surface.

Nothing happened. No flash of brilliant light or eerie grey mist encircling them both.

He turned around to face Hikari and ask for direction but when he turned around, she was gone. The mist had disappeared and in its place was darkness deeper and thicker than anything he'd ever witnessed.

It had found him once again. He fell to his knees, reaching out his arm to grab the Destiny Stone to balance himself but it too had disappeared. The chill that had been coursing through his body slowed his blood, he tried to scream but all that left his lips was a pitiful sob. His body was no longer his own.

Once again Ken ichijouji was alone with the darkness.


	31. Hero

_So first I'm just going to apologize like crazy for taking so long with this update! I had it all worked out in my head because these kinds of things always come to me right before I fall asleep but when I woke up I couldn't remember ANYTHING! So the next time it happened, I texted it all to myself on my phone haha ;) It took awhile to write and it's not a super long chapter but I really like how it turned out, and it is a character we needed to check up on ;)_

_After apologizing like crazy, I'm going to proceed to THANK YOU ALL LIKE CRAZY for reading this much =) I really want to thank Light's Blue Blossom, ThatsWhatSheSaid07, Sweet Cari, Rowena Raven, Tanya Takaishi, Mitchie Love, li'miss sunshine, Appealtoreason, Shara Raizel, and Matani for your lovely comments on the last chapter and I hope this one doesn't disappoint! =)_

_So here is Chapter 30, (31 including the Prologue) and I'm expecting to update soon with 31 because it was one of the first ones I wrote, my favourite of the whole story, and a character many of you guys have wanted to check up on =) AHH SORRY MINI SPOILER :P_

_Side note, if any of you guys are on tumblr, please check out digifanfiction(DOT)tumblr(DOT)com. My story is one of the ones on there, and if you could send in a mini review or anything on there, that would be wonderful 3_

_ANYWAY: here it is, please enjoy :D And I'd love love to hear from you guys :D_

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_**CHAPTER THIRTY**_

He was the leader. So, that meant he should be leading the troops into battle right? Or at least be on the front lines. Worst comes to worst he should be following behind, possibly because of an injury that occurred in battle.

A leader shouldn't be sitting on his bedroom floor wondering what his troops were up to, wherever they were.

Daisuke left his head shelved on his knees until the throbbing began, he needed a headache. He needed some justification to why he wasn't with Takeru, Hikari, Ken and Miyako. A headache, that was good. He needed to feel something besides… whatever it was he was feeling. Whatever that emotion was, he did not like it one bit.

Daisuke's adventure had been cut short, so short that it hadn't even begun. Pretty heroic, right? He had switched from cursing his friends for leaving him out to self derogation.

_Useless_

He let his fingers tangle themselves in his mass of auburn hair. He felt the tug on his pounding heart before he heard the quavering voice. Mrs. Ichijouji had been over for the past few hours, alternating between sobbing into Daisuke's mother's shoulder and anxiously folding and refolding her handkerchief. It wasn't before long that Ken's father joined them, followed by Hikari's parents, Miyako's who had just arrived home from the wedding, and Takeru's, who came separately and his father was joined by a woman Daisuke had never seen before. Just another thing that didn't make sense.

At first Daisuke had been in the living room with them, offering jokes and any lightheartedness he could muster to lighten the mood.

But that's not what they needed.

They needed some kind of hero. Daisuke looked down at his lap, at his faded Spiderman pajamas. It felt like they almost mocked him. _Faded, _a faded hero, just like him.

Maybe he was just a washed out version of who he'd been three years ago. Sure, he was no Taichi, he wasn't a leader in the sense that he rose to the position because of his courage or whatever other traits. He was the leader because he held them together. Or that's what Koushiro told him one afternoon.

_He held them together. _Daisuke liked that. That's what the adults needed right now, someone to hold them together. As he stood up, he adjusted his pajama pants. Peter Parker was in love with the pretty girl, well… he ended up getting her. There was hope, right? Daisuke wasn't a geek after all. But while Peter was Spiderman, he saved the people of New York, but he couldn't even save his own Uncle Ben, the person he loved the most.

Daisuke leaned out of his bedroom and looked down the hall and into the living room at his own Uncle Ben. His dad was handing Hikari's mom her third cup of tea. He looked exhausted, and the shame returned to Daisuke, his own father was being more of a hero right now and he already had a full time job. He was a good man. And the supposed leader of the Digidestined was cowering in his bedroom downing in self-pity.

Sure, his friends' parents didn't need a leader to lead them into the midst of battle right now, but maybe he could channel his friends. They needed some kind words of encouragement. He could be Ken.

Daisuke went, not self-conscious enough to care that his friends' parents were to see him in his pajamas, it's not like they didn't have enough things to care about already. His father gave him a pleading look as he accepted the now-empty teacup and saucer from Mrs. Ichijouji's jittering hands. She mewed her thanks and reverted to twisting her satin handkerchief in her hands. Daisuke could barely see the delicate embroidery around the edges, it might have once been royal blue but now was a faded November-sky gray.

_Kindness. _Daisuke reminded himself. _Channeling Ken… here it goes. _

"I like your… hanky, Mrs. Ichijouji."

The sniffles began to lengthen and form soft sobs. "Th-thank-you, Davis, Honey." She brought the handkerchief to her cheeks and dabbed at the shine on her skin, tracks that tears left behind. "Ken gave it to me."

At her own mentioning of her son's name, the dainty sobs turned back in to full upper-body heaves, as her husband reached his arm across her and Daisuke's own mother scooted across the carpet to rub the crying woman's knee.

_So much for kindness._

He couldn't give up though… who was next on the docket? Hikari! But she was quiet, nice and a good listener… but it didn't seem like anyone was up for a chat and the kindness boat already sailed. She had the crest of light… what could that do?

Daisuke straightened up. He could shine some light on the situation!

And how would he do that?

Miyako! The bespeckled girl was the smartest person, well… aside from Ken and Koushiro…

Miyako was the smartest girl that Daisuke knew!

"Umm… I might know where they all went." The words left Daisuke's mouth before he had quite thought everything through. Not so smart, but pretty Miyako-esque.

The silence shot through the room as if Daisuke had just fired a pistol. He could hear the furnace rev up, the dishwasher switch cycles and the clicking of Jun on the computer's keyboard in the other room.

"And you just decided to tell us now?" Takeru's father asked gruffly. He was not shouting, but he was probably the most terrifying man Daisuke had ever encountered.

"Hiroaki!" Yuuko Yagami and Natsuko Takaishi exclaimed simultaneously.

Takeru's mother continued, "He is just a child, obviously as worried about his friends as we are about our children." She motioned at all the adults sitting across the room, and then let her gaze stop at Daisuke, now sitting on the coffee table by his mother's folded legs. "Go on, Daisuke, tell us what you know."

A lump in Daisuke's throat formed. Sure, he knew a great deal. Not everything, by any means, but definitely more than anyone in the room combined. One thing he didn't know, was what the adults knew, _knew _and what he could explain without endangering another world they may or may not remember.

He looked around at the adults staring at him as if he was a dog about to preform an amazing trick. "They're gonna be okay, first of all. I just have a really strong feeling that all of them are gonna be okay."

"_Going to_ be okay?" Mr. Ichijouji spoke up for the first time in quite awhile. "Not okay _now_?"

Daisuke wasn't exactly the most in tune with his emotions, but he got gut feelings whenever his friends were involved. Especially Ken. Ever since Stingmon and ExVeemon DNA-Digivolved, their bond had been almost inexplicably close. Like he finally knew what twins meant when they said they could feel each other's pain.

And Ken was definitely in pain.

But nothing could happen to him right? He was with Hikari, hopefully Takeru and Miyako as well. And if everything was working in his favour, the older kids as well. Jyou could help him, whatever was happening.

Daisuke continued, offering a slight smile but no response to his best friend's father. "Umm, does everyone remember… the events of six years ago? With Taichi, Yamato and-"

He stopped himself, looking at the pleading faces but unknowing eyes. No they didn't remember. Maybe it never happened, maybe it was just a blur that occurred when the older Digidestined had been erased from existence. But one thing Daisuke knew for sure, he couldn't tell them all about the older kids. Especially not Taichi and Yamato. Their parents already lost one kid. Finding out about the other ones and then losing them in the same sitting would break them even more.

Okay, sure… Miyako was smart but that's not what he needed. They needed Iori. He needed the wise old kid who was born with a soul of eighty. And Germany was practically another world anyway.

"I mean, three years ago."

There were a couple slow nods. "With the Digimon." Takeru's father whispered.

"Yes." Daisuke stopped himself again. Everything was coming together. Why he was here and why they all left.

The Digiworld wasn't finished with them. With Ken, Hikari, Takeru and Miyako. Ken and Hikari kept getting pulled back to the Dark Ocean and it was never really resolved. They never figured out why. Takeru was transfixed on getting rid of all the evil in the world, it hurt him more than anyone. Maybe he needed some answers still?

And Miyako? She was the only person who cared about Ken more than Daisuke himself. And, being so, she found him the only person she could confide in on one point. One point that he _swore_ he would never tell Ken.

She was terrified he would become the Digimon Emperor again. She had nightmares all the time. Often she phoned Daisuke, insanely early, sobbing into the phone about how she couldn't bare to lose him again.

And maybe hearing that he left to go to the Dark Ocean again brought those fears back full force.

"The Digimon are from the Digital World, you probably knew that." Daisuke started, scattered agreements coming at him in response, urging him on. "There are more worlds too. We know of one other one, but there's no, like, number we know for sure. There could be millions out there. But they're all connected… somehow. And-" he paused, not knowing how to explain the disappearance of the older digidestined without adding two more mothers to the sobbing party beside Ken's. "A couple days ago something happened to this world. Probably a crack that led to another world, and because they're all connected, The Digiworld chose Ken, Hikari, Takeru and Miyako. They all have stuff they need to deal with and somehow… I think these connections between the different worlds, I dunno, sensed it in a way. The Digiworld, all the other worlds, they aren't finished with my friends yet."

They all still had demons to deal with. Demons Daisuke never had. Demons Daisuke had done everything to protect his friends from but failed. But he could protect the people his friends cared about most. He could save their Uncle Ben's. He could give them something that maybe Takeru would too.

He could give them hope.

"Something I know about them, the four of them, that you guys might not know… is how strong they are. They'll do whatever it takes to protect each other, even though they're messed up sometimes. Crazy, quite often. But they'll be okay. They'll come home safe and probably better as people. I know it, because I've seen it happen one time before, three years ago. After all, they're my team."

That's when it stopped. He didn't need to channel anyone but himself. He was Davis, he was their leader. He could be their hero.

Even if they weren't here to see it.

He'd make them so proud.


	32. Bindings

_One year, one month and one day ago… I uploaded and posted the prologue of Another Line! :D So in celebration here is a quick update, not such a quick chapter though. Actually my longest chapter so far and I think it's going to be the longest one of the whole fic!_

_Anyway! Thank-you to those who have been with me since that first day and every single one of you who have read my fanfiction since then! =) A special thank you to Tanya Takaishi, Matani, Sweet Cari, Mitchie Love, ThatsWhatSheSaid07 and li'miss sunshine for their lovely reviews =)_

_Since this is a special occasion and such a big chapter (both content and length-wise) I would REALLY love to hear from you whether or not you've left a review up to this point! I'm very interested to see what you guys think about how it's been progressing so far and the revelations in this chapter. At the bottom of the page you'll find a link that says "Review this chapter" and it will let you either review anonymously (unsigned) or login with your fanfiction dot net account. Whatever you're comfortable with! I just would LOVE to hear from you! :D_

_So, here we go, I wrote the first half today and the second half like a year ago! I was considering splitting it into two chapters and leaving it as a huge cliffhanger to continue in three chapters time but I wanted this chapter to be a big thing… so I'm sorry that it's a so much to read but I hope you enjoy both halves and I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear from you all! (L)_

_Enjoooy :)_

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_**CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE**_

The pain was a searing fiery burn. Common sense told her to scream, to cry, to curse the bastard who did this to her… but she couldn't. No matter what she felt, the emotions never came.

So, Mimi kept swimming as brutally fast as her body permitted.

The salty water was suddenly millions of ground up knives carving into the wound on her arm like tiny leeches. _Leeches_. The thought made her sick. Or would have, before.

Becoming a mermaid took away the ability to feel emotions, but not to feel pain. Even simple emotions were muted. Her disgust for leeches included.

Mimi stopped swimming. The tiny salt assailants still stung, but not to the extent they had when she had been swimming. She felt like one of those thrill-seeking psychos they talked about on TV and how they couldn't feel anything so they sky dive and do motorcycle stunts…

Or turn into psychopathic murderers to get some sort of thrill.

She wished she could get out of the water, back onto the island where she had been hovering around ever since she found it. Even though she didn't know what it meant, she liked being around the little temple to Jyou's crest. She would even go as far to say it brought her comfort.

Or it would have, had she the ability to feel anything. But up on the land… it was like she could really feel. It wasn't like she remembered, because true feelings were just that now, memories. But it was so much better than being in the constricting ocean. It had been nice at first, not having to deal with fears or emotional pain, but now she wished she could be more than a foggy blur of blankness. All that was left was the sweltering burn from her arm.

But the option to find emotional refuge on the island created by the castle's huge tower was gone. The huge ship had pulled up and their fishing net landed atop her. It was made out of old rope, the same kind that her uncle used to tie the tarp over his fancy car. It was easy to untie herself. Especially since the feeling of panic was absent.

She had swam as fast as she could away from it, releasing the few fish that had found themselves entangled as well. When she'd reached the rocky curved shore of her small island, there had been one warning bullet and then the one that slid right past her arm, leaving a bloody gash in it's trail

Luckily the fat bastard didn't have better aim.

Calling him a name would have made her feel better before, but this… there was no way to feel worse… no way to feel better.

No way to feel.

Mimi wanted to cry more than anything.

She looked up at the surface of the water, calming around the boat that hadn't moved since the fired shot. Were they going to wait for her? She hadn't seen anything in particular about the boat, aside from the black flag that flew from it's mast and the huge grandeur of it all. She hadn't even seen the man who shot her, but she liked assuming he was heavy. And ugly… and would die alone.

Vindictive. She could think the thoughts, but it didn't bring anything more.

The sea brought nothing but the salt searing in the gash along her arm, the blood had slowed but still left a pinky cloud behind whenever she moved. She wanted desperately to get out of the water and let it dry out.

Was _want_ a feeling? Because she felt that!

No, it wasn't. Mimi exhaled and watched as the bubbles that captured her breath rose to the surface as she wished she could.

She liked thinking that she was avoiding the surface out of fear, but it was just self-preservation. Self-preservation, like some kind of animal.

Mimi longed to even feel disgusted with herself.

The calm movement of the waves slowed even moreso and Mimi looked below where she was hovering, that awful castle from before.

It was awful, but she could _feel_ there. Even moreso there than on the surface, although the feelings were mostly ones of fear. It was still something.

She needed to feel something. Mimi began swimming tentatively towards it, determined to feel something other than the emptieness that had only worsened since she had been shot.

The calmness was almost eerie. No fish were meandering around her, even thought they seemed to avoid the depths by the castle, there were always a couple passing by. But they were gone now.

Out of the corner of her eye Mimi saw a shadow dart past, too big to be any fish she had seen thus far, Mimi redirected her downward dive to circumnavigate the castle's pillar in search of this shadow. The numbness longed to be curiosity.

The shadow bolted in the opposite direction of where she had been swimming towards, Mimi saw it out of her perefiral vision and instantly switched direction to swim towards the shadow again. Out of nowhere, her body pounded into a screen, an invisible forcefeild. Mimi stopped and stared at the figure that appeared on the other side, like some animal at the zoo.

The figure came closer and examined Mimi, and the thought changed. It was she who was the zoo animal.

"Who-who are you?" Mimi stuttered, unable to take her eyes off the being in front of her. One of the bubbles that escaped her mouth reached the invisible barrier and popped.

It did not speak but raised its head and Mimi stared at it, taking everything in. Its body was distinctly feminine and although it was small in stature, the creature did not look weak in any sense. On first glance, Mimi assumed her company was another mermaid, but there were too many differences. Albeit Mimi had been yet to see a clear reflection of herself, she knew her basic appearance was the same as it had been the week before. Plus a tail, minus legs.

This creature that hovered in front of her was not like any mermaid Mimi had seen in any sort of television, literary of cinematic reference. The closest thing she could mentally compare it to was a Digimon. Her regal appearance mimicked that of Angewomon, although on a smaller scale. Again, very reminiscent of Angewomon was the solid mask that covered most of her facial features, leaving only her mouth free. She had a tail, wider than Mimi's and it started as a deep blood red around her hips and faded out to a barely noticeable pale pink by the time it faded into one shovel-like fin at the base, unlike Mimi's two leaf-like ones at the tip of her own tail. This creature had fingerless gloves, appearing to be made of some translucent pink metal, leaving room for two little fins escaping her wrists that reminded Mimi of Piximon's wings. She wore a breastplate of the same material around her torso with an ornate design on the front. Mimi saw the base of the design appeared to look like a teardrop, and she could see a cross and a sun-shape as well. What did this mean?

"You are hurt." It was not a question. The creature spoke without moving her lips and Mimi thought she should have been taken aback, but was not. It was like it communicated with some sort of telepathy that Mimi expected.

With a swishing movement the creature moved her hand and with what felt like a short breeze, the barrier vanished and the creature neared Mimi.

"What are you?" the Digidestined asked, tactless.

Not offended, the creature responded. "You and I are one and the same."

Mimi considered arguing. It was very obvious they were not the same, as Mimi still retained most of her humanesque features and had not, to her knowledge, developed the ability to create forcefeilds and eliminate them with a flick of the wrist.

"I have been in this form many more years than you. Time brings skills and soon one develops everything necessary to survive in harmony with the ocean."

The creature's voice was so soothing. She sounded like a woman who would be chosen to narrate a documentary, but turned away because the tone of her voice was so easing that it might put the viewers to sleep.

"So, you started out like me? Human?"

"We all do."

"Then how did you turn into-"

"First, one must make a choice. To live their life void of the chains life thrusts upon them. You are here because the universe saw your heart, the emptiness you felt. Here, feelings are beneath us. You are struggling now. With one choice, you can remove them forever. You can become like me."

The creature, whatever hyper-evolved mermaid form reached for Mimi's arm and the pain stopped. The mermaid's skin was icy to the touch and sent shivers down Mimi's spine. But there was no more pain.

"Come with me," she continued. "You will never have to feel this way again. Join myself and many others who have chosen to live without the burden of emotion. In the past, we have chosen to wait and let those in your condition spend more time coming to terms with the situation before bringing this choice upon them, but after seeing what the humans have done to you, what blind emotion: fury, confusion, ignorance has done to you, your decision will be easy. It is your time."

The muting of her emotions from the water made Mimi's head even more of a muddled mess with this new information? Was she serious? Being like this, or rather, like that for the rest of eternity? Maybe a few days ago this would have been an easier decision… but now?

"_Hurry!_" The creature spoke, this time the sereneness of her voice vanished to one, not of panic but with harsh tones. The stillness of the sea ended and waves coursed around them. "Choose _now!_"

Above them, a splash entered the water. Was the ship firing cannonballs?

"I-I can't. No." Mimi spoke to the creature. "Can you change me back into a human? Can you send me home?"

Any interest the creature might have displayed disappeared instantaneously. "No." She said simply, and quicker than Mimi's eyes could register, she was gone, leaving Mimi alone to face the new problem. Where was this cannonball? Wouldn't it be sinking? She looked up at the unclear shape, definitely not a cannonball. It began to move erratically and Mimi backed away. It was a _person_.

Mimi began to dart away, but then noticed the unsureness of the person's swimming. Why would a ship have sent a man who didn't know how to swim after her?

Carefully, Mimi backed closer to shadows that the castle's tower provided, but allowed a closer look at the person, definitely a man, trying desperately to swim downwards.

She was ten feet away from him, and he had no idea but suddenly a feeling grew in the pit of her stomach.

A _feeling._

It was five years ago, Jyou was embarrassed about not being able to swim, a feat that he kept saying would have helped him a lot in the digital world days. He signed up for lessons and on one of her visits Mimi had stopped by the community center to watch Jyou learn to swim in a class full of elementary schoolers.

She teased him but he never flinched. He was Jyou, old reliable Jyou.

And that was exactly who was swimming towards her at that very moment.

In a fit of supressed emotions, Mimi darted towards his still insecure body and grabbed him under the arms from Behind so he would not see her, ignoring his blubbering protests. Dragging him underwater, she raced around the curvature of the castles pillar to the side of the island where the gazebo would sheild them from the ship.

Momentarily haven forgotten that he was not like her, that he needed air, Mimi bolted upright with all the strength that her petite frame could build and tossed Jyou on the rocky island.

Coming to the surface allowed a loosening of the reins on her emotions, so she could begin to feel them but not express them as she wished.

He lifted himself upright, still half-sprawled out on the rock but sitting enough to stare at her, still half submerged in the water. She dug her nails into the gritty brick, waiting for him to say something. Maybe it hadn't felt like that long to her, but she had no idea how long it had been for him. She had no idea what he had experienced.

She tried to read the emotions on his face, in his eyes. In almost envious curiousity she saw shock, confusion, and most notably… pain.

"What are you?" he asked, low and husky as if he had not spoken for a long time and his vocal chords had rusted over. Mimi was taken aback by the same words she had spoken to that mermaid creature. Was that what he saw? A creature?

She stared at him, his hair was longer than usual and she had never seen him anything but perfectly clean shaven, not like this light stubble that covered his jaw. He had obviously removed his glasses before coming off the ship, which let Mimi look again at an unobstructed view of his dark eyes one last time before letting her own drift away from his face. He was wearing what appeared to be borderline rags and the water had begun to prune his skin.

Mimi looked across the island at the thwarted image of the ship. Jyou's ship?

"You shot me!" She exclaimed, more to clarify than to accuse.

He was taken aback. "It wasn't me! It was some guy on Taichi's-"

"Taichi?"

He looked at her, confused. Of course she knew who Taichi was. But what was going on? Where exactly were they?

"Are- are you hurt?" He asked, his voice retaining the calm steadiness she was used to… but there was something, an undertone that she didn't recognize. Something had happened that wasn't related to the fact that she had fins.

She shifted her body to show where the bullet had grazed- deeply, but still just grazed- her arm. Not noticing until now that the pain had returned after the other mermaid had left.

He reached for his pants, a rip went up towards his knee and he removed a strip of the fabric to tie it securely around Mimi's arm. It probably wouldn't do a whole lot after being in salt water for so long, but the pressure felt nice. Feeling his hands around her arm felt nice too.

And feeling felt wonderful.

But the ability to read his face gave her a feeling that turned her stomach. "What's wrong, Jyou?"

He looked away, still hunched over her torso that was resting on the shore.

"You don't have to tell me. I… it feels nice being able to talk to someone. I guess I've missed a lot?"

Jyou snorted. Not a rude one, but one that was synonymous with "obviously".

"Yes, you missed a lot." He amended simply.

She hoisted her body up, completely onto the island now. He avoided looking at her tail as if he was avoiding looking at a naked body.

"I missed you most." She said softly. She hadn't intended to say it, to say it the way she said it, but as the words left her mouth she did not feel any regret.

And it wasn't because of her inability to feel anything.

Instead of hoisting her body up, she raised her hands and wrapped them around Jyou's face, pulling him towards her. She leant in, pausing and waiting for him to pull away. But he never did.

Mimi Tachikawa had kissed a lot of guys. She had quite the repertoire of ethnicieties, high school stereotypes, and kissing ability.

But as she kissed Jyou Kido, all of them vanished. They fell so far down the list that they were on another page, or another book altogether until there was only one name left. Only one that mattered. The only one who ever mattered.

And he kissed her back.

Time seemed to stop, as cheesy as it sounded it felt like they were no longer sitting on a stone island in the middle of a sea in some strange foreign universe. She was home. She was where she belonged. Everything felt warm and and safe and just _right._

Until he pulled away.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, not knowing what else to say to the face of someone who looked so distraught. Mimi's head sank to her stomach. Had she ruined everything?

"It's not you-"

"Well obviously it's me! It's always me! I'm the one who always screws up and it's because of me that you're here and you are probably really cold and I'm so freaking selfish, I can't believe-"

"Mimi!"

She stopped. She lifted her hands up to her own cheeks to feel the warm tears leave trails running down her face. She rubbed her eyes again and they didn't stop. Her lip began to tremble and Jyou, looking determined not to break eye contact motioned downwards, not speaking and his pallid face gained a bit of color.

She followed the direction with her eyes that he wouldn't dare to follow. Her green scaly tail had been replaced with legs. Her legs. Her newly waxed legs, chipped pink nail polish on her toes and all.

The tears turned into full out sobs as Mimi smiled and leaned into Jyou's receptive arms. He awkwardly pulled off his loose button up top and she slipped it over her head. What had done it? All the feelings seemed heightened now, maybe the suppression was released from the kiss like some sort of magic Disney moment? Or was it how he made her _feel?_ How whenever she thought of him, even when everything was muted, she still felt him in the pit of her stomach… the feeling he made her feel. Happy, safe, cared about.

Not alone and never lonely.

xxx

Mimi couldn't remember seeing so many different facial expressions then those looking at her when she walked aboard the ship alongside Jyou. He hadn't said much on the walk there, just helped her since not doing so for an extended period of time had made her uneasy.

But among the unfamiliar expressions and faces was one that stood out more than anything. Any hurt or resentment that Mimi had felt melted away and the sobs threateneded to come back. She burst into an unstable dash towards the red-headed girl, tentatively hoding Jyou's glasses.

Sora.

Mimi fell into her arms as if she was a child with her mother, as it often felt between the two girls but Mimi didn't care. Sora mussed Mimi's hair and braced the younger girl's neck with her hand, whispering phrases Mimi didn't hear but was automatically comforted by.

A different hand cuffed her arm and Mimi turned around to see Taichi, another sob got caught in her throat as she dove into the boys arms, overwhelmed by the emotions coming out in sobs and disjointed phrases of affection and relief.

"Meems, Sora's gonna take you to a room to, uh, get changed and… she'll fill you in." Taichi whispered the words into her hair, the warm condensation from his breath somehow simultaneously calmed her while his tone alterted her to the seriousness of the situation. Not that being on some kind of pirate ship wasn't a warning sign.

He nodded towards Sora, who still had her fingers loosely laced in Mimi's and she led the brunette into the cabin of the ship and down a hallway.

"What do you know?" She asked simply as she closed the door behind her. The two girls stood in what looked like a grand estate room, everything heavily ornamented and decorated. It looked like the pictures of Louis XVI's room that Mimi's parents had showed her after they spent 18th anniversary in Versailles.

Mimi shrugged, the hem of Jyou's shirt raising up her thighs. "We're not in our world and it's not the Digi-world either."

"Orenda." Sora said simply. "It's the name of this world. And we all seem to have… alter-egos here who we seem to have replaced. Except you, I guess. We were all split up and have spent all the time up until now trying to find one another. So far it's just Taichi, Jyou and myself. And now we have you." She smiled and squeezed Mimi's hand. "And we don't know exactly how it works but Catherine and Wallace are here as well, although they have no memory of us from… our universe. So they don't know they're Digidestined or anything. They're not really… themselves. They're like… reflections of themselves, or something. That's the whole confusing part that I'm trying not to wrack my brain about. I guess, that's all you really need to know."

"Sora… is everything alright with Jyou?"

The redhead shrugged. "We don't know. He hasn't spoken to anyone. He just stumbled onto the beach riding a horse and has been in an almost catatonic state ever since. When we saw… you- what happened he just handed me his glasses, took off his shoes and jumped off before anyone could stop him. We know something's wrong… he just wont talk about it."

There was a knock on the door and after Sora's assent it opened to reveal Wallace. Identical to the boy she met once in the States, albeit a bit older and more scruffy… but it was definitely him. This must have been what Sora was talking about. "I brought these up for you both… they're from your old ship." He nodded towards Sora and placed two gowns that were folded over his arms, on the bed. "You should both try to get some sleep. It was a long night… for everyone. We're going to get back on our way as soon as everyone's ready."

Mimi realized she hadn't slept in days. Or ate. She was starving. There was some bread on a small round table by the corner and she inhaled it as Sora watched. "I'm going to try and get an hour or two of sleep. Who knows what's going to happen next." She rolled her eyes and Mimi took one of the two dresses off the bed. There was a lot more to the story that Sora must have left out, but she wasn't in the mood to dig. She was going to get dressed and find Jyou. He probably needed some company.

Or she did.

xxx

Jyou was sitting on the upper deck and Mimi couldn't tell if her was sleeping or not. After adjusting the huge dress that she'd put on in the room with Sora, just sat down beside the boy who gave no recognition to her company. Someone must have given him another shirt and Mimi was glad, having left his in Sora's room.

What could she possibly say to cheer Jyou up?

"Remember when I was all down? And you offered to take me shopping? Well, I would offer you the same but I doubt there's any malls around here!" She tried to use lighthearted humor but it failed. Jyou turned his head slightly but otherwise his disposition remained the same. Disgruntled but not disheartened, Mimi placed her own hand on his, not intending to be forward but merely comforting.

Jyou retracted his hand and folded his arms.

"Look, Jyou. I get something happened. A lot of crap has been happening lately, and it always happens to us. Maybe it hasn't been anything like this since going to the Digiworld, but at least then we stuck together. We were split up over and over but we always found our way back to one another and you always took care of me. It was so easy to rely on you, because you were always there for me. But now it's my turn. I'm not going anywhere, it's my turn to be reliable."

She held her breath, waiting for him to turn his body away from her altogether or simply walk away but instead he replaced his hand on top of hers. Not a word. Nothing in his facial expression changed and Mimi didn't expect so. But he didn't move his hand again.

The feeling of waters getting more turbulent caused Mimi to close her eyes, the rough waters didn't feel so bad when she was actually in them. The rocking feeling always reminded her of being in the Digiworld. Either some piece of land caving into a giant pit, some angry and possibly brainwashed digimon knocking the subway or little raft to its side. She held her breath and counted to five, and the swaying stopped. There was silence for several seconds and then a booming crash sent Mimi slamming her body against the ships wooden railing. Still clutching Jyou's arm, Mimi stood up. Men, like angry fire ants in red uniforms flooded the ship. "Come on, Jyou." Mimi pleaded, trying to hoist the boy up. With nothing but a pained groan in return, Mimi bit her lip to stop herself from letting out any potentially selfish sounding request, she knelt back down to help Jyou up. As she wrapped her arm around his waist, he let out a muffled gasp and she retracted her hand. The wooden railing had cracked and split, fracturing itself into Jyou's side.

"Oh, God." Escaped Mimi's lips. "Tell me what to do, Jyou!" She begged, trying to restrain herself. She was not going to cry, she was not grossed out by the volume of blood soaking through Jyou's already thin, and partially wet clothes, she was going to help. She was going to be someone Jyou could rely on.

Jyou didn't speak. He tried multiple times, but all that escaped were broken whispers, almost immediately cut off by gasps of pain.

_Okay girl._ Mimi thought to herself._First aid._

She tried to remember the first aid unit they had done last year for Health Class. Mimi shut her eyes and tuned out the violent shouts; angry phrases turned into indecipherable haziness, like she was back underwater, and then there was silence. She was in the musty old health room. Trying her best to stay mentally present in a memory of a class she hardly remembered, Mimi gripped the air. What did she remember about health class?

Her teachers too-short gym shorts. His tacky fanny pack and Summer McCall's bad dye job. Keith Burns' gag-inducing B.O. and the gum pressed so deep into the carpet that it looked like the brown rug was almost polka-dotted. The CPR dummies stacked in the corner. The lesson.

Suddenly Mimi was back in the present. Metal clanking together and footsteps running around. Each sound emphasized by hundreds of shouting voices. She reached for her own arm where the fabric from Jyou's pants was still tied. "I need to bind it." Mimi said, half telling herself, half asking Jyou. He nodded weakly. "separating the wound from the direction the heart pumps blood." Again a nod, and a weak smile.

"I have to… uh, take off your shirt." She announced, the pauses adding to the awkwardness of the situation.

Jyou, not obliging nor denying Mimi, stared at her. "I'm really sorry." She offered, grabbing the hem of the thin fabric and lifting it upwards, stopping whenever Jyou let out a seething wheeze, "I'm so sorry Jyou!" She whimpered, tears clouding her vision.

"Don't cry, Mimi." Jyou comforted, his voice strained, soft and shaky, but with a small smile. "You're doing good."

Even though the pain in her friend's voice seemed like it was wringing her heart, Mimi nodded appreciatively. "'Kay." She cleared her eyes with the sleeve of her dress and pulled the white fabric over Jyou's head.

Using the already soiled shirt as a cloth Mimi mopped up the rest of the blood on Jyou's back. The cut wasn't as big as she feared, about the length of her hand: wrist to fingertips. The wood splintered in it were the size of crayons, three, broken and deep. Mimi held her breath, careful not to gasp and worry Jyou any more than he need be. "I-I should pull them out." She thought out loud, her voice as shaky as her hands.

"Mmhm."Jyou agreed, although distress was threaded all over, through his abrupt answer, tight lips and squinted eyes with his replaced glasses slipping down his nose. Mimi stared at him for a moment and watched the age disappear from her mental image of him. His binoculars and wide-eyed, worry wart face that had watched over her so reliably, on their adventure. His hair cropped short and every other word being one of protest.

"Mimi…" He whispered, pulling her back into reality. He wasn't twelve. He was nineteen. He was tall and was well groomed and had, in their reality anyway, stylish glasses. Although he wasn't as charming as Yamato or ruggedly handsome as Taichi, he was Jyou. That was all he needed to be.

With soft hands Mimi pushed his glasses back up. For a moment her caramel eyes met his black-coffee ones. She smiled apologetically as she reached for the first splinter and pulled it out. Jyou gasped and his fists clenched. Mimi pulled out another, a swear world left Jyou's lips. Mimi closed her eyes and whimpered and she slid her fingers onto the last one. As it left Jyou's skin and she dropped it on the ships dock beside the other two, Jyou gasped, his breathing haggard and uneven. "Thanks, Mimi." He pushed each syllable into a separate pant.

She placed a comforting, cool hand on his torrid shoulder, feeling the contact simultaneously heat her hand and cool Jyou's back down. "Just tie the shirt around… like a bandage." He instructed, his voice earning back it's normalcy.

She did so, tying the sleeves together in a thick double knot and both of them sat in an accomplished silence, amongst the chaos below them. "I'll see what's going on," Mimi offered, the worry of Jyou fading to make way for concern for the rest of them.

What she saw when she stood on the balcony, overlooking the main deck was straight out of a movie. The red-coated men were fighting the mixed bag of crew members on their ship. Sora's red hair flew around her head like fire and her almost shredded dress caught Mimi's attention first. It wasn't the one Wallace had lain the bed for her but one Mimi had noticed strewn on the floor of that room. Sora was closely shadowed by Taichi, and the two of them were swaying and jabbing swords at the fire-ants that charged at them. Mimi cringed at their seeming disregard for Sora being a girl as a thick young officer jabbed his sword in her direction, her back turned. His cowardly choice was matched with Taichi slinking in beside him, blocking the officers sword with his own, elbowing the man's large stomach and pushing him over.

Satisfaction splashing onto his face, Tai looked up and let his eyes catch Mimi's. The blonde reflection of Wallace, although slight and looking years younger than any of the men he effortlessly defeated, shouted something at Taichi. Mimi knew this by the expression on the blonde's face, but his words were drowned out by the rest of the shouts and threats floating around by the mix of pirates and officers. Taichi questioned his first mate's order and with another shout he nodded and grabbed Sora's unexpectant hand from behind him. The two ran, Taichi releasing Sora's hand when he was certain he had her attention, and raced in Mimi's direction.

"We have to go!" Taichi shouted.

He glanced at Jyou, looking like a rag doll thrown into the ships corner, and sighed. "Come on, Jyou." Taichi knelt down and wrapped Jyou's arm around his shoulder, hoisting him up. Taking cue, Mimi did the same to Jyou's other arm around her own shoulder and Taichi began leading, while half-dragging Jyou around the small cabin to the other side of the railing. "Sora, go!" Taichi shouted at the girl ahead, looking down the railing at the ladder leading downwards to a small rowboat.

Sora's eyes darted back and forth, conflicted. "Where's Catherine and Willis?" She shouted. "We're not leaving without them, Taichi!"

The brunet sighed, "I'll get Jyou down, you guys go get them."

"I'll help you." Mimi offered, still not comfortable with leaving Jyou's side.

Sora grabbed Mimi's hand, "Tai can do it."

Tripping with the fast pull of Sora's lead, Mimi struggled to regain her footing. The two looked over the balcony, scanning the crowd for the two blondes. "There she is!" Sora gasped, pointing to Catherine's bobbing curls at the base of the staircase.

Catherine, whom Mimi had only heard stories and seen pictures of. She was now the girl work risking their lives for.

Sprinting to keep up with the leggy redhead Mimi watched as Sora pleaded with Catherine to follow them onto the boat. "No." Catherine protested, looking like a Barbie holding G.I. Joe's machete. "You get to safety." Her accented voice pleaded with Sora.

There was a shout from behind them and Wallace, or Willis as Sora called him, emerged from the angry mix. "Why aren't you guys gone?"

"They are. I'm not." Catherine answered, boldly and simply.

Willis clutched Catherine's wrists and the two stared at each other, locked in some time-void space. Their deep gaze was making even Mimi uncomfortable.

"I'm not leaving without you." Catherine finally whispered.

Sora violently grabbed Catherine in a brisk hug, and the blonde placed something in Sora's hand. Straining her delicate face to avert tears, Sora hugged Catherine again and raced back up the stairs, taking Mimi with her. Mimi watched behind her as Willis and Catherine disappeared, swords in one head, the other hand clutching each other, returning to battle.

xxx

The ladder was slippery and steep. Mimi looked at Jyou's sprawled body in the tiny boat, what seemed miles down. Taichi was standing, clutching the ladder, the waves looking infinitely more violent in comparison to the little boat. Sora jumped down, followed by Mimi's small slip and Taichi helped them both settle down. Jyou weakly passed both girls corners of the blanket he had been clutching, but in agreement, they refused for the bare-skinned injured Jyou.

Taichi pushed the boat away from the huge ship. The waves took them farther and farther out, Jyou gasping with each wave jolting his back.

The four were silently sitting when a small-pebble like splash outside of their boat caused Mimi to jump.

"A gun!" Taichi gasped. "That is not cool!" Mimi looked to where the older boy was facing, and sure enough, not fifty meters away from them, a tall curly haired officer stood, aiming a primitive looking gun at their small boat from the height of the ship. Taichi stood up swiftly and Jyou yelped as the rocking of the boat shifted his body. Mimi watched as Taichi lifted up his shirt to reveal the rustic looking firearm tucked into the waistband. "Luckily for us-"

"TAICHI!"Sora gasped, clutching her head and ducking behind the bold brunet. With a single shot Taichi fired and their curly-haired assailant clutched his leg and buckled, kneeling as one would if in prayer.

"I know him." Jyou managed, weak and raspy. Mimi, Sora, and Taichi all turned to face Jyou curiously, as if his injury was somehow affecting his cognitive abilities. "Pell."

Minutes passed and sounds from the boat became fainter and fainter. Jyou had fallen asleep alone in the bow of their boat, while Taichi sat facing the two girls on the other side. Mimi watched as Sora sat, staring forlornly at the empty spaces still left in their boat, clutching her hands to her lap, not releasing whatever it was that Catherine had given her.

Taichi cleared his throat, finally breaking the silence. "This feels like that part of Titanic where we're about to see the boat break in half and sink." Mimi followed Taichi's gaze and stared at the huge ship, no longer coated with lights and looking as gallant as its captain.

Sora, her gaze not wavering from the empty spots in between Jyou and Taichi, added ruefully, "And the lifeboat is only half full."


	33. Protected

_So the last chapter was very… action centric so this one is a much shorter, much more mental chapter. Some more thoughts that needed to come out ;)_

_Thank you, thank you, thank you to Dreams on Wings, Tanya Takaishi, ThatsWhatSheSaid07, Sweet Cari, Mitchie Love, li-miss sunshine and Matani for your reviews :D I actually make these weird noises when I get the alerts from my e-mail that I have a review on my fic, it's like the deformed love-child of a giggle and a purr and… I dunno what else. It's weird. But seeing those e-mails make me so unbelievably happy! :D_

_Anyyyyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and I'd love to hear from you whether on here or tumblr or anything else =) Thanks so much for taking the time to read this and if I don't update before then, I hope you have a Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays) and a Happy New Year :D (L)_

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_**CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO**_

"This is what it looks like, I'm almost entirely certain."

They were halfway down the mountain. The plan to use the height to their advantage failed when an almost impenetrable fog lay out, reminiscent of the one Myotismon set before them all those years ago.

Takeru inched closer to where Koushiro crouched onto the near-frozen dirt path. The redhead picked up a rock that had chipped off the stony face of the mountain and carved a slanted line into the ground, with another intersecting it, revealing an 'X' shape.

"I have a few maps in my bag, nothing like the maps we're used to. Rough would be an absurd understatement." He mused in that characteristic voice of his, distant so that everyone around him wonder if he had forgotten their presence.

Miyako hummed. "So, that's the whole world… Orenda, right?" Her arms were folded over her dress, Koushiro's ancient-looking jacket hanging over her shoulders.

It was strange being in this wold, on one hand it was great to have found Yamato again; on the other, he wasn't called here like the older Digidestined. If the world could call them here, could it send away those it didn't want? A shiver ran up Takeru's spine like a xylophone. They had to get to the castle, since both older boys had "feelings" that that's where the others would be heading.

"Even if our instincts are incorrect," Koushiro continued, adding a small circle around the center of the cross he made in the dirt, "-the castle is at the apex of the continent. Logically and statistically, there is a high probability of wherever the others are," he motioned down the four legs of the cross, "They will head inwards. I mean, unless they want to go for a swim." He chuckled at his joke. "It's one massive ocean surrounding Orenda. Getting to the castle gives us the highest probability of finding the others."

Everyone agreed, although half-heartedly in a jumble of nods and grumbled assent. Going to the castle meant walking back down the mountain, and what looked like a whole arm of the "X" to get there. Takeru hoped there was a secret underground transport system that was surprisingly modern from what he took to be some medieval land. He doubted it.

The four of them walked, both Koushiro and Yamato trying to dispel as much information as they could in case, by some chance, they got separated. Takeru hoped it wouldn't come to that because he wasn't listening.

What were the chances Hikari managed to get here too? Takeru was aware her intention was to get to the Dark Ocean and as much as he disliked her way of going about it, she wouldn't have gone there just to make things interesting. She must have had some reasoning, right?

Maybe there was a portal there too, like the one that the cards opened for him and Miyako. Maybe she and Ken were with Taichi, and hopefully they were with Sora and Jyou and Mimi, although that was unlikely seeing as one part of the story the older two had retold that Takeru _had_ listened to was the fact that whatever subuniversal power transported them here and put them in some sort of wacky, alter-universe lives of themselves felt it was necessary to change Mimi into a mermaid. That sounded like something out of a childrens picture book, or a Disney movie.

Although, it wasn't difficult to picture Mimi swimming and dancing and singing underwater with sea-creature companions. Putting starfish in her hair and collecting shells, or whatever. It seemed almost plausible if it had been somewhat possible. But if one person didn't lie, it was Koushiro. And he never would have told such a farce if it had to do with Mimi Tachikawa, who he avoided speaking to or about unless absolutely unavoidable.

"So I really don't exist?" Yamato said for the third time. Ever since Takeru had given them a brief explanation, which he felt paled in comparison to what they had to say, Yamato had been relatively quiet. "Mom and dad don't remember me at all?"

Takeru shook his head, he had stayed relatively patient with his brother, if he himself had been so distraught over the news of the nonexistence of his older brother, it was understandable that to find out you don't exist in the only life you've ever known would be… unimaginable.

Yamato folded and unfolded his arms quickly, clearly uncomfortable but didn't slow down his pace. "Did you show them pictures of me?"

"There are none. I told you, you don't exist at all. Everything has been moved and changed to be like you've never existed. It was like a really frustrating nightmare." He had also left out the detail that their father had remarried. No good could come from revealing that information.

"And my parents… weren't at my house?" Koushiro spoke up. He had been relatively expressionless when Takeru had delivered the news originally but he could imagine it would be difficult to ignore something like that.

Takeru shook his head. "The lady at the door said they'd moved away. The house was probably too big for just them."

Koushiro was silent and Takeru rethought his words. Usually it was Taichi or Daisuke to say something without thinking, had he offended Koushiro?

"I wonder…" Koushiro spoke, his voice barely more than a whisper. "if my birth parents are still alive."

No one knew what to say to that. Miyako had been uncharacteristically quiet, though Takeru assumed she was having an internal struggle between anger and obligation. "Probably not." She said, sounding quite blunt but delivering the words softly.

Koushiro looked up to her expectantly.

She shrugged, "I mean, did you kill them?" She didn't wait for an answer before continuing. "Obviously not. So… I didn't mean to be insensitive but that's probably how it sounded, huh?"

Takeru and Yamato both murmured in assent but Koushiro, desperate to change the subject began speaking on another tangent altogether. "It's quite interesting actually. How this world removed us from our own and removed all evidence of our existence in the latter. It's like the universe's defence mechanism."

"Defence mechanism?" Miyako snorted. "You make it sound like some sort of lizard."

"What I meant by that," Koushiro elaborated, his shoulders tensing slightly, "-was that, in order to make up for the fact that we got transferred to help Orenda, things were altered so that there was no recollection of us in our world. No way to harm our loved ones, or cause any more problems."

"Except we still remembered you." Miyako interrupted sorely.

Koushiro shot her an impatient glance over his shoulder. "Can I finish what I was saying before you tear my theories limb from limb?"

Miyako's head sunk slightly, shamefully as she grunted a response in attempt to make him think she didn't care. They all knew better. She was irritated and tired and hungry. She was like a giant two-year-old who handn't had her nap and was wearing a dirty bridesmaid dress.

"It's similar to when we first went to the Digital World. Time slowed, so that while we were gone for what felt like months, it had only been hours in our world. It's like the particular universe in is protecting us so we can save it."

Everyone was quiet, absorbing this information. As bizarre as it sounded, it made sense. "But then," Takeru spoke up, "-what's the point in having us younger kids remember?"

"Or not go in the first place?" Miyako spoke up, her tone suddenly peaked with interest.

Takeru watched Koushiro. The redhead was walking beside him, a few steps behind and clutching his chin with one hand while the other crossed over his chest, a position that Takeru flashed back to many times the older boy had worn it. Each time leading to a hypothesis, a theory that sometimes ended up saving their lives.

"This might sound illogical but I just need to think out loud." Koushiro said, relaxing both of his arms until they fell to his sides. "Maybe Orenda initially needed us, the older Chosen Children because of our crests. The younger kids were, in a sense, backup. They needed to remember in case we needed them, and the universe somehow knew they would find their way to us."

"It makes sense," Yamato spoke softly, his deep voice almost gruff. "I guess. But what do our crests have to do with anything?"

Koushiro's eyes glazed over, deep in thought and the others, having learned after so many years, waited for him to mentally return and reveal where his thoughts had taken him. "When I was in the forest with the other researchers," Takeru recalled something about how apparently this researcher was Koushiro's "alter ego", or maybe it was just Orenda's way of protecting him?

"I saw some pages from their work." The simplicity behind his words betrayed him, there was so much more behind this, but Takeru didn't press on. "And one had the crest of Knowledge drawn on it. It just can't be a coincidence. Either that it is here in this world somewhere, or that I saw it. Our crests must have some meaning in this world too, and maybe that's why we were chosen."

"But what about Hikari and I?" Takeru blurted out, unsettled. "We both have crests, we were both part of the original team with you guys!"

Both Yamato and Koushiro looked at him, appraising his outburst for deeper meaning while Miyako rolled her eyes.

"It's obvious, Takeru." She spoke matter-of-factly. "You're not part of their team anymore. You're part of mine. Daisuke, Iori, Ken and mine. As much as Daisuke likes to think he's the leader, you have a great part of that role too. We wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the experience you and Hikari had. If you and Hikari had come here with them, I'd still be at my sister's, probably with Ken while Daisuke and Iori would be none the wiser. Koushiro is right. There's a reason they came first, integrated into Orendian society, while we came… like this. Maybe it has something to do with the crests, maybe not. But whatever it is, we have a purpose. I just… have a feeling we've set something in motion. There was a reason we went through the Digital World and Ken came with Hikari through the Dark Ocean or whatever. Something called us here, and maybe you just thought it was to find your brother, but I think Koushiro's right. The universes are shifting us back and forth, protecting us and themselves as they do so. But we came here by choice, we are the game changers. We are setting everything in motion now. The universes did their best to protect the older kids, but we're not protected here and back in our world, our parents are freaking out because we made a choice. And we're probably going to have to make or witness some more. Some more that the worlds can't save us or protect us from. We're going to have to save this world, or else it's going to end us."

There was silence. No one argued, no one concurred. The facts and theories swam around Takeru's head, through his tousled blond hair and in front of his cerulean-blue eyes.

She was right, they had made a choice that was most likely going to affect all of their lives. But Koushiro was right too. They didn't forget like their parents did. The memories of Yamato and the others were not removed or touched, and that was for a reason.

Because the universe wanted them to make the choice. The universe wanted them to leave their own world behind, go through another to get to Orenda. Because something was going to happen, and in order for it to start, they had to make that choice. Their fate was sealed, and their universe, this one, and any other could no longer protect them.


	34. The Messenger

_I hope everyone had a great holiday and 2012 has been a good one so far! =) This is a chapter that I wasn't quite sure where to fit in, but I think this will work well! Thank you to all of you who left comments, I just want to say a quick hello to Helen ess and say welcome to her sister who just started reading! Thank you guys for your amazing comments! :D Also, a thank you to sarah177k who sent me an amazing message =) To the rest of you, your amazing commentsjust completely make my day! Thank you so much for reading up to this point and I hope this, and the rest of the chapters to come don't disappoint =)_

* * *

_**CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE**_

It was him, surely.

But the way the other boy only glanced casually to his side at the younger brunette, was strange. There should have been a reaction, an exchange more than the haphazard grin he offered.

But how was this even possible? Iori knew it wasn't, something was wrong with the boy beside him, and before the thought had completely formed in his mind he knew exactly what it was. The boy, sitting beside him and appearing to look not much older than his own thirteen years was supposed to be dead.

Yukio Oikawa was dead, this was a fact.

There was only a handful of people who knew this as well as Iori, who had witnessed it as he had. Given, none of them had been impacted as much as he had, but still. It was something Iori knew, one-hundred percent: Oikawa was gone.

Then how was he sitting beside Iori at that moment, very much alive?

Iori looked around the room, where was he? The panelling on the walls was not from his own home, but vaguely reminiscent of blurry photographs he doted upon of his deceased father.

He was in his grandfather's house, where his father grew up. The house Iori's grandfather couldn't bear to live in after the premature death of his son.

"Come on, Hiroki!" Oikawa suddenly exclaimed with a soft nudge as he pointed towards the small dated screen in front of them with the controller clutched it his hands. Iori's heart lurched. The realization that had been obvious from near the start of the sequence was now clear. But he didn't want to say it out loud, to fully allow the word to form in his mind in fear that the whole illusion would disappear.

It was all a dream. And the dreamt up version of Oikawa thought Iori to be his best friend, Iori's father. The sick joke twisted at Iori's nerves as he turned to find a mirror. But, as everyone knows, finding what you want in a dream is like finding one's own singular breath once exhaling it.

As he stood, Iori inherently knew he was no longer his father, and Oikawa was no longer in the room with him. Iori kicked himself as he silently urged the reverie to return. He hadn't dreamed of Oikawa, or even his father for that matter, in years. He'd never truly knew the man, his father's best friend, and it was only through these dreams that he could converse with him, even if it was only his subconscious responding and not the man himself.

Iori could live with that.

The wood panelling faded, each spiralling into one another and fading as if someone pulled the plug on a bath and the water was draining. The colour was gone, and Iori stood alone in a vast black, nothingness. He feared moving. Even though it was only a dream, there was no ground, no walls, nothing of substance. If he moved from the spot he was in he could fall to his death. Yes, it was only a dream, his mind yearned to rationalize, but he recalled Miyako once telling him that if you die, really die, in a dream, you die in real life. At the time Iori had rolled his eyes and had told Miyako to stop reading such unreliable things on the internet, but the fear had forced his rationale into surrender. It was time to wake up. This dream was no longer something he wanted to experience.

Iori tried to jolt himself out of sleep, a method he had made up when he had started getting horrible nightmares and believed himself too old to crawl in bed beside his mother. He tried again, but still the darkness surrounded him. Something was holding him in. Something was preventing him from waking up.

Iori's usually steady heartbeat quickened. Was he trapped here?

There was a noise. The silence was split, not quickly but slowly, as if loosely woven fabric was being torn slowly, each seam letting out one last cry as it let go.

A dial tone?

Instinctually, Iori reached for his back pocket where he usually kept his cell phone. The cheap flip phone he had gotten for his stay in Germany often pocket dialled if he put pressure on the wrong place. It wasn't there, but of course not. He was wearing pajamas and his phone was on his bedside table.

The dial tone made way for a voice, his own, hard and irritated.

"WHAT!"

Then Daisuke's voice played, as if some omniscient sound system was replaying the conversation of the other night. The worst were distorted. "Tha-that b-bet-better.." came out like the words were crumpled and covered in static. The conversation cut off and the static filled Iori's ears, just like when the cable cut out and the volume was too loud. White noise filled the expanse of nothingness. Just it and Iori.

He tried again to awaken and failed. What was going on?

Then, silence. Brief, however, as it was interrupted:

"Iori."

The voice was thick and deep, just as he remembered. The hair on his arms pricked up, his neck tingled as if someone had spiked his spinal fluid. Suddenly nothing was dream like. It felt as real as he was.

Despite his former hesitation, Iori spun around, his thin thirteen-year-old frame quavering from nerves and disbelief as he saw the figure stand in front of him, same pallid skin and long dark hair, his back hunched slightly and his mouth in a lightly angled line.

"Oikawa?" It was obvious who it was, but Iori said it anyway, almost as if his brain needed confirmation. It was silly, the deceased could still enter dreams, why should he be so surprised to see the man standing before him? It wasn't the first time Iori had dreamed of him, although he had gone almost a year without doing so.

The man nodded once, his hair curling slightly at the ends as he did so. He didn't speak, somehow knowing Iori had more questions to ask before he explained anything.

"How are you here?" seemed to be the most pertinent thing on Iori's mind, and was spoken first. "This is just a dream… but I can't wake up. Something feels wrong."

Oikawa was stoic, even more so than he was in life. He moved only at the mouth as he spoke, and slight movements in his face. If one did not look above his neck, he made a believable statue.

"Correct, it's a dream. However, it is not the dream that is wrong, Iori. This is the only way I could contact you, otherwise I fear a great loss is approaching. A darkness, such as this one."

He lifted his arm stiffly, like a robot, as if to indicate the blackness still surrounding them. Only Oikawa was not dimmed by the lack of light, but this impossibility seemed the least important of the long list of them that was still growing.

"So, you're the reason I can't wake up? You're trying to contact me from…" Iori paused, gauging his words to not sound so superstitious, but he couldn't figure another way of putting it. "From beyond?"

"In a sense, yes. Your friend Daisuke tried to contact you recently, did he not?"

"Yes, but-"

"They are in great danger, Iori."

Iori paused, and gauged this. Why had he been so harsh on Daisuke? Well, it was Daisuke. He'd never expected him to be the one he'd receive a call from if something went wrong. Takeru, his DNA-Digivolving partner maybe, or Miyako. But never Daisuke. "But what can I do? I'm so far away from Japan!"

"Their problems aren't in Japan."

"The Digiworld?" Iori gasped. "I thought that was over, no more fights."

"Not entirely. I cannot explain fully in this capacity. You will have to contact Daisuke. He needs your help and I can't do a lot, or inform you of too much, but I can tell you that the forces of the Universe will take care of you. Get you where you need to be."

"What? What is that supposed to mean?"

Oikawa did not respond, and Iori watched as his father's best friend began to fade out slowly.

"WAKE UP!" Oikawa roared and as his voice soared around Iori, the man's figure dissolved itnto a mist, taking the darkness with him.

Iori was awake.

He could feel the breeze from the slightly cracked window rustle the blinds above his bed, and the only darkness he saw was the back of his eyelid.

Warily, Iori opened his eyes. It was almost time to get up, his alarm was going to go off in ten minutes. Noises from downstairs filtered up through the open vent, voices speaking in that foreign language telling him that the host family's parents were up, preparing breakfast as they had every morning of his stay thus far.

Without another thought, Iori rolled over to grab the phone sitting on the bedside table, looking through the recent calls to find Daisuke's number.

It was only for emergencies, and even if it seemed foolish, Iori had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn't ignore. This was an emergency.

It was now time to hear what Daisuke had to say.


	35. The Aftermath

Thank you to li'miss sunshine, StaraptorFan, Tanya Takaishi, Mitchie Love, Sweet Cari, BlueFallenAngel and To Love Is To Destroy for your super sweet reviews :) I hope you enjoy this chapter, it's the last kind of "filler" chapter before some serious stuff starts going down ;) Thank you everyone for taking the time to read this and I hope to hear from you! :D

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_**CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR**_

The moon reflecting off the now-still water would have been beautiful if it hadn't meant something so awful. The ship was gone. _His_ ship. Taichi had lost all feeling in his fingertips.

No one had spoken for hours. Jyou and Mimi had fallen asleep, the latter resting her head on the formers sunken shoulder. Sora was awake, physically at least. The distant look in her eyes had been present almost all night as she stared, unflinchingly, at the distant place in the ocean where his ship had once been.

It was horrific. Sword fights were always Taichi's favourite part in movies, the more gore and blades flying the better. But there was nothing entertaining about what he had just witnessed. And fled from.

Whoever they were, the men wearing the red uniforms came out of nowhere. Hundreds, Easily outnumbering his crew, in number but not in skill. He felt a flush of pride that faded almost instantly. He had left them to die. Albeit, Willis had ordered him off, saying that the men would leave sooner if they believed the captain to be dead or off the ship, and seeing Sora… knowing it would be her best chance of getting out of there alive… he had no other option. At the thought of her he changed his gaze from the glassy water to the redhead, her hands clasped in her lap, twisting something small around and around. Fidgeting. Although she had never personally met Catherine… their world's Catherine, it was impossible for Taichi not to notice the look on her face. It had only been present a handful of times. The weeks after she had left Biyomon behind.

When Mimi moved to America.

After he stopped returning her calls because she and Yamato got together.

Yeah, to the public he told everyone that Yamato was his best friend. Maybe Koushiro in some crowds. But even the two of them together didn't know him the way Sora did.

He exhaled loudly, it escaped as a sigh and Sora flinched. She didn't say anything, and honestly he was glad. He wasn't ready to face it yet.

His ears had stopped ringing, Taichi just noticed. The gunshots and clanging swords, the screams had done their part, but then there were the explosions. After he had shot the officer who Jyou claimed was "Pell", the water carried them further and further away. The screams and shouts were barely audible and they noticed the red-uniformed men's ship pulling away. They were leaving, and Taichi had reached for the oars to begin rowing back to the ship and with Jyou's help they could help anyone in poor condition, and have some kind of… memorial for those who were in the worst.

But then there were the explosions. Canon fire, six of them. Each one a signature on the glorious ship's death certificate. Fire caught when one hit where Taichi assumed was the kitchen. The only thing that extinguished it was the ocean water when it sank beneath the glassy bluish-black expanse.

They were gone.

Mimi had tried to comfort him, saying that the men could have been taken prisoner. Horrible thought, but much preferable to the alternative. They weren't pirates, it was evident. What were they after?

The sky was dark, the impenetrable darkness that came with the last few moments of night before dawn. It felt like the longest night of his life, only rivalled by one other. He had lit the boat's lantern after the enemy ship had departed, and by the still flickering light could see the currents had taken them back to the island where they had shot Mimi. It had only been that morning but it seemed like days ago.

Sora had snapped from her daze, still clutching the object in her hands, a ring maybe? She leaned back to pull Jyou's blanket over Mimi. She was mad. Taichi could always tell. Mad at him, as was usually the case anyway.

Against his better judgement Taichi spoke. "What's in your hands?"

She didn't answer for several moments. Probably gauging the necessity for a bitter, angry or sarcastic response. "Catherine's ring." She answered instead.

"Can I see?" He didn't much care to see some girly ring, but as it seemed to be important to Sora, Taichi had learned that showing interest in that kind of stuff always calmed her down.

She looked down at the small gold ring in her palm as if he had asked her to sell her soul instead. But she handed the ring to him, "Don't drop it." Her voice was thin and tinny, almost threatening him to drop it so she could have an excuse to throw him overboard.

It was nothing fantastic. A simple gold band, tiny so that it probably would only fit halfway onto Taichi's baby finger. But it would have fit on any of Sora's, her long lender fingers, save for maybe her thumb. He spun the ring around, pretending the examine it but his thoughts went back to the only other girly ring he'd ever looked so hard at. He'd gotten it for Sora, a joke mostly. "A promise ring", his mother had teased when she found it in his room. She had cooed and teased him, and was probably writing a list of acceptable names for her future grandchildren. But it wasn't that, it was just a ring he'd gotten her. A small reddish pink stone, that reminded him of her crest. Love. What a stupid word.

But it was how he dismissed that word, and a relationship revolving around it, was what caused him to keep the ring under his bed for a year and end up giving it to Hikari for her fourteenth birthday instead. Because he dismissed it, and Sora dismissed him. And brought in the next candidate.

The instantly returning feelings caused Taichi to squeeze the ring tightly, bouncing the gold loop from his fingers and onto the bottom of the boat. Sora shrieked.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Taichi fumbled and he reached down for it. "Safe and sound." He picked it up, wedged underneath the supply bag and a floor board. "No harm done."

The fury in Sora's eyes was unmistakable, but at that moment something else caught Taichi's attention. "Look, there's something on it!"

Sora withheld any remarks to lean over to see the ring, pinched between Taichi's thumb and forefinger, the inside having a barely noticeable etching, "What is that?" she whispered, as if any volume could wipe the symbol off the gold band

It looked like a fancy sideways 'S'. Kind of. It was too ornate to be accidental and too shapely to be a fancy 'S' anyway. "It might sound weird, but it kind of looks like a crest." Taichi whispered. "Like how yours is kind of like an L on the side and looks like a heart, you know? This one is like… a sideways S or a… weird unfinished infinity symbol."

"Why are you guys talking about crests?" Mimi mumbled, groggy from just waking up.

Sora looked at Taichi, her eyes telling him to keep it to himself and he understood. There were enough complications at the moment, they didn't need to bringing new ones into the equation. "Nothing." He lied, Sora nodding in approval as she slipped the ring onto her index finger.

"You're talking about crests! Did you see it too?"

Half playing dumb and half playing along, Taichi asked, "See what?"

"I saw Jyou's crest! Maybe that's what all the officers wanted!"

Taichi considered this. Was this just Mimi being… _Mimi _or did she actually know something?

She continued, "I mean, what else could they want?"

Sora scoffed. "I dunno, let's ask Captain Jack Sparrow over here."

Taichi nudged Sora. What did they want? He closed his eyes and furrowed his brows. Shouts rang through his ears and the words formed on their lips. That was it! "They kept asking me where the prince was."

"Prince? Wonderful. On top of everything we now have a renegade prince to worry about." Sora let her face fall into her hands.

Mimi shuffled her body so she was sitting up straight. "Well, the only real lead I think we have is the crest I saw. Maybe that can help us get home." Mimi offered. She adjusted the blanket so it was completely on Jyou's still-sleeping body.

"Where is it?" Taichi asked, curiosity outweighing scepticism.

Mimi motioned vaguely towards the water. "That island where your crew shot me." There was an accusatory tone, but she was evidently trying to hide it on account of the situation involving the current status of Taichi's crew.

"We're almost there anyway. We can check it out." Taichi mused, briefly looking at Sora for approval.

She nodded and quoted Mimi. "It seems to be our only lead at the moment."

Mimi suddenly looked uncomfortable. "One more thing," the fragility of her voice grabbed both Sora and Taichi's full attention. "It's not really an island… it's like the top pillar of a castle. An underwater castle."

Under normal circumstances Taichi would have burst out laughing, and would have made several variations of jokes involving such a statement that he could use to tease Mimi on future occasions, when deemed appropriate. But these circumstances were anything _but_ normal.

"Oh, one more thing. I know I said that before but this is actually the one more-"

Sora sighed. "Mimi, we get it."

"Oh, okay." She let out an uneasy giggle. "Umm… the water, the castle under there... I couldn't breathe in it. There must be some kind of magic, or force. It might be important."

"You couldn't breathe underwater? That's unusual." Taichi couldn't resist the sarcasm.

Mimi kicked him from across the boat. "Stop being mean! I was a _mermaid_ in case you've forgotten. I didn't have a scuba tank with me."

He had forgotten that part.

So now they had a magic underwater castle, an island with the crest of reliability, a mysterious crest on a ring, a renegade prince, his missing crew, Jyou's damage (whatever it was), Mimi's special bond with fish, how Sora was indefinitely mad at him, and they _still_ had to find the rest of their friends who undoubtedly were just as messed up with new baggage as they were.

Taichi let out a deep sigh. Whoever was in charge of this wasn't making it easy for them.


	36. Questions and Answers

_I just want to thank you all for your patience! It's been a long wait for this one and I apologize because life had been crazy! I have most of the chapters to come all mapped out and since I'm almost on Summer Break, I can get them to you without too much wait in between! :D This was a scary, daunting chapter to write because it's such a huge turning point in the story and I had to nail it, so hopefully I did for you guys! Thank you to everyone who has read up to this point! To those who have been here since the beginning and to those who have just found this fic and everyone in between, welcome and I hope to hear your thoughts on chapter 35 and the story so far! ENJOY! :D_

_**CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE**_

Opening her eyes made no difference. The darkness had not lifted even though her eyelids did. The pitch black surrounding her in every direction was the same, eyes open or closed. Hikari cleared her throat to be sure some of her senses were working, and sure enough the _ahem_ bounded off the walls around her, like a ball zig-zagging down the hall. Where was she? The thoughts in her head were fuzzy. What was the last thing she remembered?

Ken.

The realization wrapped its bony fingers around her heart and yanked it down to her stomach, triggering a drowning panic. What happened? Where was he? Where did he go?

Where was she?

Twitching each finger and then haphazardly moving her hand around her body, inch by inch, slowly illustrating some kind of idea of her surroundings. Was she in the cave still? Hikari's palm landed on a cold stony wall, slightly less than arms-reach in front of her. She pivoted and reached around. It was an inlet, no bigger than her small closet at home but deeper. She tensed her back and could feel it was just inches in front of the wall behind her. Three walls around her, only one way to go. Hikari lifted her arms above her, waving them about like an over-enthusiastic sleepwalker. Slowly and unsteadily raising to her feet, Hikari stumbled. Her limbs were unstable, as if she'd been sitting on them for so long that they'd lost feeling.

The height of the inlet allowed her to stand, as long as her neck was slightly craned and her back hunched. Haze from her mind was slowly lifting and thoughts, memories were rematerializing. She had seen Ken disappear. No matter how she tried to incorporate a sense of logic, Hikari Yagami knew better than most that disappearing into thin air was not something in logic's realm, but it was more than possible. Although to others around them it may look like a disappearing act… whenever Hikari had been the person who vanished, it had been to relocate her. When she and the others had faced Apocalymon they dissolved into where they were merely data and then when she had, as Gatomon had described, fuzzed out like static on a TV screen, she'd gone to the dark ocean.

Hikari continued to spread her arms wide, in a swimming motion, to make sure she didn't run into anything… or anyone. If she was still in the Dark Ocean she'd figure out what to do when it wasn't so… dark.

But there was no doubt Ken disappeared. Smoke… or something enveloped him and then he was gone. And that was the last thing Hikari could remember. Had she passed out? Had the smoke reached her and taken them both somewhere? The trouble was that not knowing and still being in the Dark Ocean, no closer to Taichi and the others were equally troublesome.

Something moved.

It was clicking, echoing down the tight cavern in front of her. Had she kicked a pebble and sent it bounding ahead? Hikari let her foot do a quick sweep of the ground beneath her, it was completely smooth and solid. As far as she could tell, there wasn't even a crack. And not only that, but it had been much too far ahead to have been created from her.

"Is anyone else here?" Hikari called, her voice was weak and cracked. "Hello?" She tried again, pushing her voice to be stronger, despite being hopeful that no one would answer.

She continued to move forward, still feeling ahead when something flickered. She stopped. It was still pitch black all around her until again, a quick burst of light. Tiny, no bigger than that of a singular birthday candle and no less than twenty feet ahead of her, but it was undeniably light.

Her pace quickened as her intent to use her arms as safety measures disintegrated. Hikari was almost running through the cramped stone corridors towards the light. Hikari, after all, was the child of Light and although she'd had her share of trouble, surely this could mean a way out. If not a way to Ken, or Taichi, at least a way home.

Before she reached the approximate location to where she thought she saw the flickering light, Hikari crashed into the polished stone face of the cavern.

"That's a wall, darlin'." A strange accented voice filtered through the air and Hikari jumped. Her alarm from hearing him and disorientation from practically running into a wall sent Hikari flying back onto her backside. She was not the kind of girl to face-plant into a wall, but was silently grateful that she hadn't been running full force. Her embarrassment was pushed aside and curiosity took over as she turned around to see that the owner of the voice, who looked as alarmed as she did, was joined with a dozen or so other people. Wall-sconces held torches, the light reflecting off the polished stone walls-the cause of the firefly-like light that had given her momentary hope.

She was definitely not home, and definitely not in the Dark Ocean any longer. The stone that she thought was the makings of a cave was certainly done by human measures. The stones were polished and more like giant sheets of stone, rather than cavern walls or even bricks held together with mortar.

"I don't mean to be rude, miss, but how the heck did you get here?" The old man spoke again, and Hikari was overwhelmed. How _did _she get here? Where was here?

Questions pooled in her head, none so far that she could answer. "Where is here?" She asked him.

"You're in Orenda, of course. The castle's dungeon if you want specifics."

Orenda? Castle? Dungeon? This simple statement was information overload, and Hikari didn't have the means to fathom enough questions to get these questions all answered. She assumed the man was moments away from pressing her for more information, but she wasn't ready to give any. Even in this state of confusion and shock, Hikari was aware enough to know this man and his company would not accept a girl coming out of nowhere, making such an embarrassing and abrupt entry.

At the mention of the old man's company, Hikari began to look down the row of prisoners. There were no cells, just a straight wooden bench on each side of the long gymnasium sized stone room. At the opposite side, illuminated by the flickering torches, she could see a trap-door exit on the ceiling. Strong wood, it looked like, and steel enforced. Maybe there was another exit behind her where she came from? Hikari turned around to see the corridor, what must have been a dead-end hallway, perhaps an unfinished extension to the dungeon…

It was gone.

There was nothing there but a flat wall, proving the room to be perfectly rectangular with no fixtures save for the benches, wall sconces, trapdoor and a primitive looking outhouse.

"Wh-Where did it go?" Hikari's breath was gone. Nothing made sense and she just felt like crawling into bed and falling asleep for about a week. Of course, that wasn't possible at the moment.

"The only thing that's changed around here over the past couple days, darlin', is you poppin' from thin air and crashing into that wall."

Hikari stood still, as if she had been struck from behind and was in shock. Well, she was in shock. She had definitely not "popped" out of nowhere, and there was no way she had imagined the hallway she had walked, well, hunched through. But here she was.

The man was still staring at her, as if awaiting an explanation and she didn't know what to say, or even where to begin.

"Oh, Sein, leave the poor girl alone." This voice was female and soothing. It sounded like something her mother would say in a similar tone. Hikari felt a pang in her chest, she hadn't been homesick until that moment.

The woman who spoke was sitting across from the man, called Sein, on the opposite bench. Hikari turned to see her and was taken aback. Impossible! "Dr. Hisami?"

It was undeniably the school psychologist. Hikari had been in her office once when a girl in her class had died and it was mandatory for every student in the grade to go to grief counselling. Hikari hadn't known the student personally, but had been relieved by Dr. Hisami's words of condolence and even though she hadn't known the student, felt better by attending. More recently, Hikari herself had been the reason Taichi was now seeing Dr. Hisami. Hikari instinctively reached for her wrist, the faded bruise the least of her present concerns.

"I'm Ari." Dr. Hisami spoke. "You must be disorientated. Come, sit down."

Hikari followed instruction and sat on the wooden bench beside Dr. Hisami. But… something was off. Besides the obvious claim that her name was Ari, which could be passed off as a shortened form of Arisa, Dr. Hisami's first name, Her demeanour was inexplicably happier, despite being in a dungeon. She even seemed more youthful, although Hikari could not put her finger on why.

"Those are very strange clothes." A young man, maybe Taichi's age spoke with a slight chuckle. He was handsome, tanned with brown age and had almost translucently fair hair. "You're definitely not from around here."

That was one this Hikari could be certain of.

She looked down the line from Sein, Ari and the fair haired boy, seeing a small, equally fair haired girl and two well-built men who appeared almost identical. The group appeared to be together, with similar looking simple canvas clothing, all looking like weathered, but overall pleasant people. Why were they in a dungeon? Again, probably the last question she should be wondering.

With an evident separation from this first group was a bunch of men, perhaps twenty or so, who fit the dungeon type better. They were all rugged, gruff looking… almost brutish. But instead of just looking disempowered and hopeless like Ari, Sein and their comrades, this latter group looked to be in total mourning. Morning for whom?

Again, not her primary concern.

"Do you remember anything of how you got here, hon?" Ari asked as she placed a comforting hand on Hikari's shoulder. "I don't mean to pry, but Baldy is right. You are not dressed like anyone I've ever seen before, and I don't mean to sound pretentious but I am the world expert on people."

"She is." Sein assented.

How could someone who was a world expert of _anything_ be in a dungeon? They all looked rather scholarly, the first group at least. She appraised her clothes, compared to these people, all dressed in what looked like costumes from a crossover Nativity and Shakespeare play. Boots, jeans and her peacoat, Ken's blazer still over top probably didn't look like something they'd see every day. Hikari didn't know how much information to release. They looked trustworthy, and it wasn't like some prison guard was going to do roll call and find her, give her the benefit of the doubt and send her on an inter-galactic ride back to Japan.

"My name is Hikari." That seemed like a safe place to start. "A few days ago, my brother and some of our friends went missing. I don't how to explain everything, but I'm from… a different world." She paused. Waiting for threats or laugher or something. Any reaction.

The one she got wasn't like any she expected.

"Just wait a moment, dear." Ari leaned forward, looking around the mourning men, "Amunet, your expertise may be required!"

_Am-u-nay_… Hikari sounded it out in her head. What a beautiful name. The girl who rose from the farthest corner of the bench fit the beauty of the name. Pale skin, black hair… she looked like a porcelain doll. Amunet joined the group, and from up close Hikari's jaw dropped. It was Amy! She was a new girl at school, a couple years older than her. Hikari had seen her around and it was unmistakably her. What was going on?

"This is Hikari." Ari explained to Amy/ Amunet, as the younger girl sat crossed legged on the ground in between the two benches. "I think you might want to hear her story."

Hikari didn't know whether to start where she had left off, where she had begun before or on another tangent altogether. Why are people from her world appearing in this one with no recollection of her?

"I know I'm from another world." Hikari stated bluntly, her self-reassurance masquerading as confidence. "My brother and our friends disappeared, and we've had… experience between worlds before. Saving them, kind of. But somehow I am here." She paused, but not long enough to allow her audience to voice anything. "Have you seen Ken? Ken, he's my age… a bit taller, hair like mine but like this," she illustrated with her hands, "Dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. He was wearing… oh gosh, what was he wearing?, Um, a tie and a dress shirt and a sweater… or something. He was with me when we were in, the Dark Ocean… another world, not this one- I don't think- or my own, and then he disappeared. And now I'm looking for him and my brother and our friends and I have no idea if they're in this world or another one entirely." She paused, caught her breath and waited to see what reaction her outburst received.

Silence for the most part.

"And, this is going to sound really strange, but I know you," She pointed to Amunet, "But your name is Amy and you go to my school and you are Dr. Hisami, who work there… you're a psychologist and you've been having sessions with my brother, Taichi."

Unexpectedly, one of the brutish men next to them rose with a violent abrupt movement. "Did you say, Taichi?" It was unclear if it was just an overenthusiastic inquiry or a threat. "Girly, you better not be making this up because we are not in the mood for jokes." He motioned towards his group. "Explain, now."

"Taichi… Yagami Taichi. He's about six feet tall, too much hair, it's brown like mine. Like his eyes. They're brown too. He is almost always in a good mood. He'd do anything to protect his friends. He doesn't take anything seriously except… he's a leader. He's my brother. He's-" Hikari's voice broke. "He's my big brother. And he's gone. I woke up and he wasn't at home and my parents didn't even remember him and every trace of him was completely gone. It's like he only exists in my memory and I thought maybe he was moved to another world, so I started to look. And my friend, Ken… he's the only other person I knew who had been to the Dark Ocean on his own before and now he's gone too." Hikari had gone through a lot of emotions since Taichi had disappeared, but she had yet to cry. Behind her eyes stung, the trembling in her chin had begun and she looked at her lap with her fists clenching the fabric of her coat. "I don't know what to do, where to go, I-"

She stopped, the brutish men mustn't have been listening to over half her spillage of words as they were talking gruffly under their breaths to one another. She heard her brother's name mentioned over and over but her head was pounding and she couldn't make out anything else. Hikari lifted her arms to wipe her tears with her sleeve.

Ari stroked her hair much like Hikari's mother would whenever her daughter was distraught. This threatened to send more tears but didn't, as Amy… or Amunet, who had been silent for the entirety of the conversation finally spoke. "You said that you know Ari and I from your own world, are you sure?"

Hikari cleared her throat. "Yes… well, it's not you exactly, like you look exactly the same and your voices are the same but… there's just little things that are, different, I guess."

"Would you… go as far to say perhaps we would be dopplegangers of these… versions of ourselves from your world?"

Hikari nodded slowly. "I guess so."

Amunet sighed.

"What is it?" Sein spoke up, clearly not enjoying the fact that he was not involved in this conversation.

Amunet looked up and appraised Hikari before turning to face Sein, "It's just that, I think Koushiro was trying to ask if the existence of dopplegangers were possible. The same night we were taken."

Hikari, not fully aware that she had done so, abruptly stood up. "Koushiro!"

Ari nodded. "Yes, he is a comrade of ours. He's worked alongside with Professor Sein for years."

There was silence aside from murmuring from the group of men.

"Koushiro is one of my friends that disappeared along with my brother." Hikari spoke so softly, she wondered if she'd have to repeat herself so everyone could hear.

She didn't.

"I have a theory." Amunet spoke, equally softly. It was if they were talking about a deceased loved one at a funeral and had to monitor their words to be as respectful as possible. "It's farfetched, but I've been looking to prove it for years and years. I have always believed that a person is only a soul. A soul has a body for that body's lifetime and then moves on and is reborn. This can encompass many things, like a soul can be attached to a certain name, certain physical appearances or even other souls." She paused. "I was telling this to Koushiro. This is just… so strange. Well, my theory I've been working on the past few years is that if a soul has greater purpose, it may extend to more than one world. It is unquestionable to me that there are infinite other worlds out there, Orenda and your world are just two individual drops in the ocean. But if someone was special, truly gifted and important, their soul could be replicated in two, three, maybe dozens or hundreds of worlds if they were potentially needed in that world. If what you say is true… my soul, as well as Ari's are replicated in your world. The same physical appearance, similar names but different life experiences to form different people." She stopped, in awe of what she had just vocalized.

"And Hikari, you said you've been to other worlds, many other ones?" Ari spoke, giving Amunet a moment to reconvene.

Nodding, Hikari responded. "Yes. My own, Earth, The Digital World, The Dark Ocean, and this one."

Amunet, now more eager than ever, pressed on. "And you have physically travelled to each of these? Not just in your mind?"

Hikari nodded. "Physically, yes. Nothing like what happened to my brother and our friends, we were not forgotten the other times. But, um, if it counts, in the Digital World time passed differently. What seemed like weeks there was only a few hours back home."

Amunet nodded, enthralled. "Of course! The properties of each linear connection between each and every world is different, temperate. Time differences like that would only be the beginning. But you're saying that nobody except you and your friend had any recollection of your brother and the others who disappeared?"

"Only those of us who went to the Digital World."

"It marked you!" Amunet exclaimed. Hikari was not taken aback by the girl's enthusiasm, she was getting closer to answers. More answers to any questions she'd ever had. "You travelled together and were marked, your souls forever linked and intertwined. Maybe my original theory wasn't entirely correct, your soul doesn't have to exist in a world to travel there, you just have to be needed and the world will forge a link to your world and bring you there, either physically or through extreme means such as those behind your brother's disappearance."

"Why would such extensive measures be taken?" Ari asked the same question that Hikari wondered.

Amunet thought for a moment, and then replied, "In case they were never to come back." These words were heavy and Hikari shuddered at the thought, but she didn't need the dark haired girl's expertise to know why she and the others remembered… they were a lifeline. They were the ones meant to bring them back. Hikari suddenly didn't feel so bad about bringing Ken into the whole situation. They were needed. Their specific experiences in the Dark Ocean brought them there, and her here where she needed to be. And if she knew Takeru at all, which she definitely did, he wasn't sitting back and waiting. The others were working hard to find Taichi, her, and everyone else. The puzzle pieces were falling together, there were just the key ones missing. The edge pieces that were needed to fit everything perfectly. Everyone. She didn't know where anyone really was. Sure, she was closer than ever before. But she was still stuck in a dungeon with no evident way out.

"Girly," The man who had spoken of Taichi before stood and approached her with an awkward reverence. "If what these people are saying is true… I think we could help explain. I think, anyway."

Everyone turned, intrigued, to the tall and well-built man speaking, wringing his hands as if he was a first grader speaking to the teacher. "We're pirates, you see. The best. Or worst, I guess… depends who you ask." This allotted for a weak chuckle from his company. "Our captain, the best man I have served under in all my life, truly, is named Taichi. He is, as you explained, all those things. Young guy, but strong, and fair. But fearless." He gave a weak smile of admiration and Hikari's heart burst, was this who they were mourning? Their dead captain? _Her brother?_

"Is he okay?" She squeaked her hands rushing to cover her trembling lips.

The pirate nodded hesitantly. "If there's anyone in this whole land and the sea that goes with it who can take care of his own, it's our Captain. But, the last few days he was with us… he was acting sure strange. Like most of him was right, his nature and all. But just strange things. He brought a girl on board. Made us scour the whole shore and cities to find her and her lady, he did. He's never been one to insist upon… you know, uh, female company so this was just, you know, real… unusual. We bring her on board and there's a whole lotta whispering, I gotta tell you, lady, we pirates aren't exactly the whispering kind. We bellow, we shout and snarl and holler. You know, _pirate_ talk. But there was a whole lotta whispering him and the… his first mate. They were always side by side, them two, but no whispering before this. And, even weirdly… he started calling the First Mate by a strange name. Uhh…"

"Willis, Gern! You're doing good." Another pirate provided.

Gern grunted. "Thanks. Yeah, uh, Willis he called him. And his name's not Willis, I know his mama called him William. Knew him before joining the captain, I did. William for sure."

Amunet interrupted, something Hikari wouldn't have dared to do against the towering Gern. "Could this be another doppelganger? Do you know anyone named Willis?"

"Small guy, I tell you," Gern started, trying to aid Hikari's memory. "Young, like the Captain but more… like a boy and not a man. Blonde, bright, scary bright blue eyes. Like the sky."

Hikari made the connection. "Wallace!" It was totally something Taichi would do, combine William and Wallace to form Willis. If Taichi had stumbled upon the doppelganger of the American Digidestined, he wouldn't have been willing to accept him as being someone else. He'd force some sense of his own will into it. Willis.

Gern continued. "After we'd gotten the girl, our ship was seized by soldiers. The prince's soldiers and those who weren't slain or escaped were brought here. Captain escaped with the girl and… oh! The siren! And the lad from the beach. Just so much that's not like our captain... but the First Mate, Willis… or, eh, whatever you want to call him was slain. He stayed behind to protect the captain and let him escape and the soldiers were mad. Something about the prince missing and we lost a lotta good men there. And if whatever you folk are talking about with souls and stuff, I hope the souls of all my fellow men are in a good place. Another one of your worlds maybe. They were my brothers. They still are."

Hikari placed a hand on Gern's shoulder. "I'm sure they are." She spoke reassuringly, no longer afraid of the big man big strangely connected to him, not just by her brother. She remembered Wizardmon's ghost appearing to her, Gatomon, and the others. While it was heartbreaking, it gave her closure. Like he was still there with them all along, watching over them.

Amunet resumed her speech, "If you and your friends who went to this… Digital World, perhaps your souls are more linked with other worlds than others are. If Orenda is so troubled they required these friends of yours to come and for their souls to temporarily inhabit the bodies of their dopplegangers, you must have some knowledge and insight that the Orendian souls of yours do not."

Hikari nodded. This was a lot of information, but it was reassuring. Overwhelming, but still, reassuring. Even so, something that seemed to be a small detail was drilling into Hikari's mind, so she couldn't refrain from asking.

"Gern, who was the girl Taichi went to find?"

There was some movement, noise from the far corner of the dungeon where Amunet had first come from.

"Are you okay?" Amunet called.

No reply, but instead someone stood up. A girl, haggard from emotion and pain stepped closer and Hikari was again, taken aback.

Catherine!

Part of Hikari wanted to yell at her, bring up something about Takeru. Some insignificant fight that meant nothing now. This, the rest of her, knew was not Catherine. Not the girl from France who texted Takeru constantly. Who Hikari had never personally met but had gone over the potential future event of them meeting in her head so many times. She'd meet Catherine, and the French girl would be so overcome with jealousy that she'd try to fight for Takeru, making a fool of herself and Takeru would realize he'd been wasting time with even texting the French girl when he truly belonged with Hikari. This irrelevant fantasy was now entirely obsolete as she stood in front of nothing but a shell of the girl she secretly loathed, someone who was entwined in this story. This fantastic, crazy, unfathomable story and Hikari was going to need her side too.

"I fell in love with a man and watched him be slain. I lost my one true friend the same day. I am alone. No, I am not okay." Catherine's doppleganger spoke, the same French accent laced to her words. But was that true, or was it just Hikari's mind? "Her name was Sora. The girl your Pirate Captain searched for. I know nothing of this doppleganger or soul business. I just know that I've lost everything in days. If you, Hikari, or whatever your name is, can make it back to normal I will do anything within my power to assist you in any way."

Sora, Taichi and Kosuhiro. All accounted for. She nodded a thank you to Catherine and felt every set of eyes resting on her. She was to give them answers, somehow. She let out a breath and turned to walk back towards the wall where she had entered from. Or through. However it happened.

Finely outlined, barely noticeable was a tile cut out of the polished stone wall. Hikari wedged her nail in the small groove, maybe it was shielding a button? A magic trigger that lead to an escape?

The tile came out and smashed when it hit the ground, revealing that what lay behind it was nor a door, a trigger or a button.

It was the crest of Kindness etched into the wall.

Hikari slowly lifted her hand to touch it, to trace it with her fingers. It was neither a question, nor an answer. But it was something.

Even as her finger grazed upon it, Hikari hastily withdrew it without thought, as if she'd placed her finger on a hot stove. The symbol glowed, and as it grew brighter Hikari screamed, her whole body was burning, searing with incomparable pain. The pain only grew, stronger and stronger until Gern tackled her and ripped of Ken's blazer.

The pain stopped.

"Sorry, it was glowing and I think it's what was hurting you."

Something was triggered. Ken's crest glowing, burning her like Ken's blazer?

Amunet gasped. "It can't be!"

Hikari turned to her. Surely, after everything they had discussed there couldn't be anything that _couldn't be._

"They confiscated my work. I had it… This is… Oh no." She placed her hands on her temples, massaging. "It's a prophecy. One I'd read about in my first year in Eutalia. It's one of the many related to the Six Powers, but it comes up over and over throughout history. It's never been interpreted properly, only theories but… this is it. This is the prophecy. It's begun."

There was silence. Everyone was waiting. Ken's jacket stopped glowing on the ground only to disintegrate into dust.

"Six is balance until evil tips the scale. Seven brings chaos and darkness without fail. Eight is hope for those who will come to be. A miracle arises, brings forth destiny: ceasing the fight. With this, the ninth will unfold, and this is light."

Hikari was silent. The last prophecy she was in involved Angewomon shooting Taichi. But her digimon partner wasn't here and neither was her brother. What could she do on her own? She was powerless.

"What does this mean?" Catherine whispered, her trembling arms clutching at the fabric of her dress.

"It means, this is the Seventh Power. We've unleashed chaos. We've unleashed darkness upon Orenda."

Hikari mentally replayed, one seemingly insignificant moment from three years ago. Them, herself and Takeru with Daisuke, Miyako and Iori sitting in front of a computer screen illustrating coloured lines to represent the different worlds. Line after line, different colours, all different worlds.

Until they warped and combined to leave the screen black. Completely black. Gatomon's voice echoed in Hikari's mind:

"_And in the end every world might be covered in darkness."_


	37. Breaking In

_Thank you to everyone who read, and especially to those who reviewed the last chapter! This following chapter was initially to be #35t but it could have gone either way and I ended up doing Kari's chapter before it since I had so much to write for that one. Anyway, here's chapter 36 and I hope you enjoy it! I'm excited to hear from you guys!_

_Just putting it out there… today (May 8__th__) is my 21__st__ birthday so… if anyone was, you know, somewhat inclined to send a review even if they haven't before, it would be an AMAZING birthday present ;)_

_Hahah sorry, I couldn't resist. Anyway, thank you for choosing to read my fic, and I hope everyone is having an awesome day. Enjoy =)_

_xxx_

_**CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX**_

It was so picturesque that when the others weren't looking, Yamato would reach his hand in front of himself just to make sure he wasn't about to walk into some extremely large, detailed painting.

The fields and farms transitioned into towns, not villages like the ones Koushiro and he had scoured when they had been searching for Jyou, but marketplaces. They had passed blacksmiths, inns, caverns, bakeries and the like, but what one would assume to be a bustling social gathering place was dampened with an air of hostility. Entrances were boarded over, people hung their heads and shielded themselves from view with cloaks. Even their weak attempt at masking Miyako and Takeru's 21st century outfits was pointless. Nobody made eye contact. In their hurry, Yamato had bumped into an old woman with a shawl tightly clung around her head and she had turned around and hissed at him before scampering off like a wounded stray dog.

She had actually _hissed_. If these were the people he was supposedly going to rule over, Yamato didn't see how a ball was a priority. The people living and working in the shadow of the castle either didn't recognize him or didn't care.

Once the town thinned out, they found themselves on a huge lifting road. It wrapped around the hill like a swirling ribbon, and perched on top was the gallant castle. Koushiro and Yamato had been in such a rush upon leaving that he hadn't the time to marvel in its sheer magnificence. After the dreary towns, the sprawling palace was a welcome sight. It was like the castles from Disney movies unanimated and transformed into solid reality right in front of him. Well, another couple hundred feet in front of him.

They were all exhausted, in more ways than one. Walking was all that could be done to refrain from collapsing out of sheer exhaustion. No one bothered to talk anymore, it was a waste of precious energy.

They all knew the facts, the _many_ facts and that was another source of exhaustion. The mental, emotional variety.

And no one had more than Yamato.

The castle, just up ahead and the pinnacle of the landscape ahead of them was brightly lit, despite the late afternoon sun. They all knew it was the ball tonight, Yamato had not only informed them but proceeded to mentally freak out. He'd seen Cinderella. He knew what balls like this were like. Or…Disney versions. That was what he was going on anyway.

Would he actually have to marry some Orendian girl? Maybe there was a trans-universal Statute of Limitations of things he would be forced to do in this world, and tying the knot with someone who was practically an alien would be top on the list.

God, what would Sora say? What would she do? Lyrics from a Taylor Swift song that Sora, Hikari and Miyako had choreographed over the summer filtered into his mind.

But if Sora stopped this wedding, what would happen to her?

And if he didn't get married, what would happen to him? Pell's claim that every prince died shortly after taking reign still hung heavy over his head. So, his short term goals had changed from graduating high school to getting married, losing his girlfriend, becoming prince, dying or some other tragedy befalling him, not particularly in that order. And, if he didn't go through with it, what would happen to Orenda? Not to mention him and his friends? Ultimately it was a lot of, as Daisuke would say, suck. A whole lot of suck.

Yamato was so lost in thought it took a nudge from Koushiro to notice what was making all the noise he had tuned out. Carriages. Lots of them. They had shifted from the road into the bushes to avoid being spotted by guards and taken for intruders without the opportunity to explain. Well, would they be intruders? He had left, and was simply returning.

Yamato knew that would not be how Kairo and his guards would see it. Maybe Pell could vouch for him, he had seemed like someone he could consider an ally.

"How are we going to get in with all those guards?" Koushiro whispered as he motioned everyone to crouch down. Yamato hadn't even noticed the flock of guards that guarded the entrance to the castle, a lowered drawbridge with no less than a dozen guards on either side.

"I can just walk up to them, cause a distraction for you guys to sneak in." Yamato offered.

Miyako snorted, diluting Yamato's proposal of gallantry. "Obviously if they're having the ball without even knowing where you are, you're not as precious as you think. There's probably loads of politics tying this event together like streamers. And even if you get to them and cause a distraction, what happens to the three of us? Yeah, we get into the castle, but how do we know what lies on the other side? I'm willing to bet all the feeling left in my legs that those aren't the only guards around this castle."

They stopped to let Miyako's words sink in. It was true. Yamato pictured the four of them ransacking two guards, enough for Takeru and Koushiro to be disguised… but what about Miyako? And even with guards outnumbered like that, who was to say that they could take down two fully grown men, no doubt trained for such happenings. Yamato sighed. There were no other ideas on the table.

"We could somehow get you guys dressed as guards… but I don't know how we can disguise Miyako. There aren't any girl guards. There are barely any girls in the castle at all."

Takeru chuckled. "Seriously?"

Yamato turned to face his brother, the four of them still hunched over and surrounded by the garden's greenery. "You have an idea? Because I _know_ you've been here before." The sarcasm enveloped his words and he watched his brother roll his eyes, his face wearing the expression that spoke a threat to not continue. Yamato sighed, "What is it?"

"You said there are hardly any women in the castle. Pretty sure hundreds are being delivered right to the door as we speak." He motioned back towards the path. Carriages, pulled by horses, glided up the road and into the castle. Of course!

Miyako cocked her head and silently appraised this. Yamato knew it wouldn't be hard to convince the girl to play princess, but one more tidbit could be added to seal the deal. "Maybe you'll find Mimi or Sora?"

"Not Mimi." Koushiro retorted under his breath. "Unless someone has a horse-drawn pool."

How could he forget _that_? "Okay, well maybe Sora is a lady-in-waiting or something."

Miyako hadn't needed much more convincing anyway. "Okay!"

"If they ask where you're from," Koushiro started, "-say Peri." Before anyone could question this seemingly random statement, he continued. "The group I was in, a girl was there. She rejected her invitation to this ball so no one from her town is attending. That way you won't have to worry about any unnecessary questions to slip up over."

"Peri. Okay, Peri. Peri." Miyako said confidently, as if she was pumping herself up for a game or reciting something to ingrain it to memory before a test.

"Well, it's all we have." Koushiro settled. It was evident that he wasn't entirely pleased, but they had no other options. "Takeru and I will sneak in and try to find… something. Yamato, you should make sure Miyako gets in and then distract the guards."

Miyako was already standing and walking towards the onslaught of carriages before Yamato could accept.

xxx

"What do you plan to do?" Yamato asked the younger Digidestined, she determinedly marching towards the approaching carriages and he checking back to make sure Takeru and Koushiro were hidden enough that no one would see them before enough of a distraction could be caused. "Miyako, slow down."

She did. And stopped.

"Look, Yamato. I admire you. I really do. And you know I love Sora, and wish you two every happiness together." She turned to face him, both of them standing in the middle of the groomed castle lawn. There was no way they were hidden from the guards at the gate.

"Miyako… not now." Yamato shushed, trying to urge her forward but the girl wouldn't budge.

Instead, she placed her hands on her hips, tilting her body towards him. "No. You'll let me finish. I don't know what crazy force brought you guys here, but Hikari dragged Ken into it and Takeru got me. We're all stuck here, and not even together. I don't even know if Hikari and Ken are even in the same _world_ as us, and I'm trying not to freak out. All I can do is try to get in that castle, and hope for the best. Maybe they're all in there waiting for us, unlikely, but there's something about this place that feels… like it's a good start. All I know is that we're not doing anybody any good by hiding in the palace shrubbery. We all have our own damage, our own fears about this crazy world, but my first priority is finding Ken and getting us all out of here and home. A.K.A the place where my biggest concern was what I was going to wear to the masquerade ball at school. Not whether or not I'm going to get into some real life ball in your castle or if I'm going to get out alive. Now if you have any objectio-"

"Excuse me." Before Miyako had finished, Yamato walked away and knocked on the side of a stopped carriage. The guards were inspecting one at the front, and this was nine or ten away. The small door opened and a teenage girl sat inside with a woman who must have been her mother. Both jaws dropped.

"Your… your-" The mother fumbled.

Miyako caught up, a small smile pressed to her lips. Yamato took her arm and bowed slightly to the women in the carriage, the cheesier the better, right?

"Good afternoon, madams. I was just talking a relaxing… jaunt around the castle grounds and I noticed this fair… maiden's carriage had broken down, just… yonder." He motioned vaguely behind him.

"Yonder?" Miyako questioned under her breath and Yamato nudged her.

"Yes… yonder."

The girl inside the carriage made an uncomfortable noise and her mother spoke up. "Where are you from, miss? Your clothes are so… unusual. And your spectacles!"

"Peri!" Miyako chimed, her overenthusiasm sent both the young girl and her mother into a slight jump of alarm.

Yamato watched as the mother gathered her skirt and reached a finely manicured hand out to Miyako. "You don't look like any Perian I've ever seen. But it does explain… they've always been a strange lot."

Miyako slipped off her glasses and subtly tucked them into Yamato's pocket. "Thank you, your highness for recuing me." She gave him a curt nod, her eyes widened as she took the woman's hand.

The carriages surrounding them began to move. "Hurry, girl. My Lamilla may have some spare skirts you can wear, no insult to your people but I think this occasion is slightly more… formal than you intended."

Miyako's bridesmaids dress was bordering on rags and she feigned no offence as she politely accepted and closed the carriage door behind her.

"Good luck." Yamato whispered, but with curious glances from the woman and her daughter he added, "Farewell."

The carriage began to move. Slowly and then quicker, leaving him in full few of the guards. Time for a distraction.

"Am I late?" he asked nonchalantly when several of the red-clad men noticed him. He could feel Miyako roll her eyes.

xxx

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!" Kairo fumed at the wall. It hadn't been the first thing he said to Yamato, but it had been the phrase with the most polite language evoked. "Search parties were sent all over the land. What could you possibly be thinking?"

"He clearly wasn't." Pell stood in the corner. His baby face was aged with dark circles under his eyes, and Yamato noticed a limp when he walked. The three men were in Yamato's chambers, not giving him so much privacy other than to turn away as he changed into more appropriate attire. It was something like what the guards were wearing, but more regal. White instead of red, but ropes and medals clinging to the shirt nonetheless.

"I just got lost." Yamato managed after putting on his shoe. He made sure neither man was watching as he slipped Miyako's glasses into a drawer. "I wanted to see the town and got lost."

"Lost?" Pell spat.

"Yes." Yamato replied confidently. Why was Pell giving him such a hard time? "I'm done."

Both men turned back to face their soon-to-be prince.

"Well, at least you're here." Kairo grunted, relief dulling the sharpness of his anger. He forced Yamato, his clutch tight around Yamato's back, out of the room and back down to the main hall. Pell did not follow. The great mahogany doors that Yamato had admired when he had first clued in to what was happening. When Orenda first became real to him. So much had changed since then, the least of which was that the door that had seemed so menacing in mystery was now opened, a guard on each side. They bowed their heads curtly and stepped aside to allow Yamato and the portly Kairo entry. Trumpets sounded, interrupting the light string music that had been playing and for the first time, Yamato saw the coronation hall.

It was gigantic, to say the least. There were two, maybe three hundred people in the room and it didn't seem crowded in the least.

"Your highness." A gruff voice pardoned as a patron led a lady in by the hand. She turned to him with a shy smile and a giggle, as she joined the rest of the crowd. The fanfare ceased, and Kairo nudged Yamato forward, almost causing a stumble. He lifted his head, tendrils of blonde hair falling out of place and temporarily masking what lay ahead of him. A throne, obviously. Grand and luxurious as one in any fairy tale. Yamato hesitantly walked forward with Kairo close behind. The massive crowd parted to create a wide path for him, but Yamato hardly noticed. His gaze was transfixed on what hung above the huge throne.

There were six. Six colossal woven tapestries, each of a different colour, each of their own symbol. Symbols that Yamato knew very well. The second farthest tapestry, a light blue, caught Yamato and he stood, frozen, as if he too was woven into the fabric. How was it possible that the crest of friendship, his crest, was ornately woven into a wall-hanging in a world that knew nothing of digimon or the digital world?

Yamato tried to wipe the alarm off of his face after another nudge by Kairo.

Since he was not yet prince, Yamato was directed to a smaller but equally grand seat beside the throne. It was all raised on a platform, and allowed him to see everyone and everything around the room. Everything, except the panels above his head, which is what he truly wanted to examine. A quick look wouldn't hurt…

Yamato turned around as if he was looking out the back window of a car from the driver's seat and his jaw dropped. Behind the throne was a monument, giant and stone with glowing jewels inlaid into the pattern of Taichi's crest of courage. What was Taichi's crest doing in the throne room? Did it mean something?

Of course it meant something. The more important question was what? Yamato straightened himself, facing back towards the crowd. This was definitely the worst time to be center of attention. He wished he could have snuck over to Koushiro and told him, talked about this. He would have more than willingly listened to the redhead's inevitable list of theories, but sneaking anywhere would be impossible with no less than one-hundred sets of eyes upon him. Almost immediately upon searching the crowd, Yamato's gaze caught hold of Koushiro clad in a guard uniform, at the far left trying to keep a low profile. On the opposite side was Takeru mingling with other guards who didn't seem to notice anything out of place. Yamato relaxed a little. Miyako was harder to spot, but her lavender coloured hair was what caught his eye. She subtly nodded when she noticed his stare, adjusted the dress that she had no-doubt borrowed from the girl in the carriage. Before the nod was noticed by anyone, she went back to chattering with people around her, still keeping a lens-free eye up at the throne.

Yamato turned from the scene, the masses of people with crowds still entering. It was almost unfathomable in its magnificence had he not been sitting in the midst of it, to look to another. The windows, the grandeur of each of the storey-tall frames were unrivalled by any he'd ever seen in his life. Looking out of them to the dimming sun over the beautiful scene, carriages still pulling up the path, the setting sun cast each one with a stroke of pinks, purples and oranges. The window frames added to the trickery, so that the image he saw seemed like paintings. Everything just looked so ideal. It couldn't be the town he had walked through, filled with malcontents and boarded-up doors… He turned back into the room, scanning the crowd for his friends just like one learns to scan the road for dangers upon taking drivers ed. Koushiro, Takeru and Miyako each displayed a different version of fear or uneasiness.

Yes, Orenda was unarguably beautiful, spectacularly so. But as the town had proven earlier that afternoon… the beauty of this world didn't stay that way up close.


	38. Reliability and Discovery

_**CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN**_

It was cold. Cold and quiet. Jyou didn't want to open his eyes just yet, afraid of what he would see... Or wouldn't. Everything had happened so fast, and the events before that - as if the memory sent alarm back in to his side, the pain surged through him like a searing burn, giving Jyou the illusion of being dunked sideways into a pit of acid. The wound that Mimi had dressed wasn't gigantic, he knew, but it felt like the gash in his side had gutted him lengthwise, from under his arm down to his bony feet. He should have disinfected  
it somehow... Or asked Mimi to. Of course, things like sanitization weren't top on his mind when it felt like he was being ripped apart on his way to deaths door.

Fears of infection swirled into his mind, clawing at the old Jyou, trying to bring him forward from the depth of his subconscious like the toy claw from Toy Story. Old Jyou… always worrying, paranoid, pessimistic... Everything he had tried to outgrow, but this situation brought it all back, thrusting him into everything he hoped he would never be again. He wasn't just that twelve-year-old boy consumed by worst case scenarios brought on by late night horror films that his pretended to be brave enough to sit through with his older brothers. It wasn't like that. Jyou had studied, researched the real consequences and now his paranoia was justified. This wound was not clean, he was at extreme risk for infection, and with a wound so close to his lungs the infection would spread and...

_Stop._

Jyou clenched his sides, eyes still shut, and pulled himself out of it. Maybe it wouldn't come to that. After all, as the rhythmic swaying and slow lapping of the ocean could still be heard, Jyou was surrounded by salt water, a primeval and undesirable medium, but a form of antiseptic nonetheless.

He opened his eyes and tried to stretch. Only now did he wonder how long he had been out, hours at least. The darkness was only hindered by the wavering light emitted from a lantern, the flame just bright enough to faintly highlight the outline of each of his three friends. Taichi, slumped at the opposite end of the boat, was propped up on the bench above the lantern, snoring faintly, his head slumped and the mess of hair bobbing with the boat. Sora was curled beneath a thin looking blanket on the floor by Taichi's feet, everything below her nose was completely encased in her canvas cocoon, and Jyou silently apologized to her for being so rude before.

And then there was Mimi.

She was awake, her head turned away from his, looking out towards the water. So much had happened... So much was different. Did that mean everything had changed? He stifled a groan as a swell in the water surged another jolt of pain down Jyou's side. Had she heard? If she had, she paid no attention. Mimi was transfixed on the ocean stretched out ahead of them. Where were they going? It wasn't like there was any less water than last time, but surely if they had been drifting to shore all this time they would have reached it by now, it was pitch dark outside. Nighttime, definitely... When Jyou had been awake last, the sun had just started dripping from the sky into the water below.

The candle's light flickered and settled again, the illumination highlighting the shape of Mimi's silhouette. She was undeniably beautiful, she always had been. But it wasn't like that... It wasn't that he sat up every night pining for the girl with the pink hair and unfailing impracticality. She had always been his in a way, not in a way that could be made Facebook official or carved into an old tree framed by a poorly hewn heart. No, it was something just theirs. They had something nobody could take away... But did he do that all by himself?

She kissed him first, the point made itself to the forefront of his mind. Yes, Jyou could not imagine a time - even eighty years in the future- where he could possibly forget the feeling of Mimi Tachikawa placing her hands on his cheeks, pulling his face closer to hers and kissing him... But the onus couldn't be entirely on her because he kissed back.

Maybe it was because he was just so overwhelmed by everything going on. He had witnessed, in effect, his brother's death. He was lost in another world where he was thrust to replace some alternate version of himself, and it was only a stroke of luck that after he had escaped his brothers assailants he had been discovered by a ship that happened to be manned by Taichi with Sora in accompaniment. It would be more than fair to say he was rightfully overwhelmed.

And while it would have been something that would have overwhelmed him in theory, kissing Mimi was the greatest solace Jyou had found on this whole awful adventure, regardless of the circumstances.

But what would he say to her? Surely she felt some variant of the same kind of emotional exertion, due to her circumstances and the form she had held during the time Jyou had been the 'science doctor'. At least he had been human. She must have felt so lonely, not that he had the civility to ask about her situation and had spent the entire time sulking and then sleeping. She was probably so impressed. Not.

Jyou started planning a script in is head, things he would say to her. Apologize for being rude, thank her for helping him when he was hurt. And then... something about the kiss. Something.

It wasn't his first kiss, well, aside from the peck a girl had given him in the eighth grade at a party Jyou had been extremely uncomfortable at... It really was. That was awkward. He wondered if Mimi knew that. How embarrassing. He was nineteen, two years older than her (and it was definitely not her first kiss, real or otherwise), and she gave him his first real kiss and it was just because she had been in such an undesirable situation that seeing him was an overwhelming relief. Maybe they would just pretend like it hadn't happened. But he didn't want that…

"Jyou, buddy, how're you feeling!" Taichi's head was no longer slumped over, he was wide awake and sitting up straight as if he had never been dozing. His smile was bright and genuine, Jyou could tell even by the faint light.

Searing pain. Life-altering confusion. Excruciating emotional damage from seeing the image of his brother's dead body. Those were the things, amongst others, that Jyou was feeling, but another glance at the brunet's giant grin caused Jyou to stop himself. He was no longer that twelve year old boy, he wasn't going to drown everyone in a flood of complaints and self-pity.

"Much better, Taichi, thank you."

At this, Mimi turned around, her legs curled underneath her body, just above Taichi. She was their lookout, it seemed. Jyou gave her a smile, a grin more like... Small and nondescript so not to reveal any of his emotions, or to betray any of hers. Maybe she was feeling the same and he just needed to figure out what it was. She smiled back tiredly. She wasn't upset, Jyou could tell that much and a weight was lifted off his chest. He could work with that.

"Do you want to talk about… anything?" Taichi pushed the words out of his mouth but Jyou knew the words were more of an obligation to say. He was considerate, despite what many said. There weren't many guys around like Taichi, and Jyou was honored to consider him a friend. That said, he also knew that the brunet feared any answer that Jyou would give.

He almost shook his head no, but both Sora and Mimi turned to face him. If Taichi didn't truly want an answer, they would. Sora had tried to get it out of him earlier… so he owed her… something.

"I saw… a ghost. Something that was- that appeared to be someone…umm," Jyou's attempt to be vague for Taichi while still satisfying both girls was harder than he expected. "It died."

"You saw a ghost die?" Taichi asked in a voice Jyou could not distinguish between teasing or horrified.

He nodded in the dim light, and before he could speak again to discontinue the branch of conversation, Mimi did. "We're here."

"Where?"

It was Mimi who spoke. "Remember where we, uh, met up?" Her stumble made Jyou wince. "The… island thing. Can you see it? There is the statue with the Crest of Reliability." She pointed, but Jyou couldn't see more that a dark outline of some stone structure. "Underneath it is a castle and, as I told Sora and Taichi, I know there's something important down there. It just… wouldn't let me at it. Even though I could breathe underwater, it was like some force was keeping me out."

The Crest of Reliability? Here? Jyou was surprised at… well, how he wasn't surprised. They'd been through too much, seen too much to be validly shocked.

"One of us should check it out," Taichi continued. "There has to be a reason for it. But, Mimi has refused. Even though I suggested she might still have a set of gills," Mimi kicked him in the side, which his ignored. "She still won't go down."

It made sense. Why couldn't they see it too? If some effigy was emblazoned with his crest… the crest of _reliability_, no less, wouldn't it be logical for him to be the one to check it out?

"It has to be me." He spoke with a too-loud-not-to-be-noticeable voice crack that abated his attempted heroic enlisting.

The look Jyou received from his three friends deflated his momentary bout of courage, but before any of them could object or voice their doubts, Jyou pulled his glasses off and dove over the side of the boat, not gracefully enough to have prevented the wave of seawater lapping onto Taichi. The embarrassment from his less than delicate entry into the water only gave him more motivation to swim downward.

The salt water was ten-thousand liquid knives. It was two hands of bony fingers, long and calloused, formed by the acid of the burning ocean, clawing at his side. His wound threatening to reopen underneath Mimi's makeshift dressing but though the jagged nails pushed the salt water into the gash on his side, it also pulled forth his thoughts, forcing them to think of nothing but the task at hand. Jyou gave in for a moment as he let out a mangled shout, resurfacing to let air fill his lungs before diving down again. He pushed the pain from his mind, lassoing his thoughts to the goal, to see what Mimi found down here, and more importantly, if it can get them closer to finding a way home. With a grunt Jyou dove back down into the water.

Underwater was dark, darker than it had been on the boat. Or at least, that's how it should have been. Instead, an eerie grayish light emanated from the water, seeming to come from the stone structure underneath the island. Just as there had been when he had climbed down the side of Taichi's ship to jump in the water and save Mimi. That was only hours ago, but felt like another lifetime.

With sloppy kicks and arms pushing the water to either side of his body, Jyou swam deeper until he reached a giant stone archway. The light brightened the deeper he got, and the source seemed to be down a dark spiral stairway. The light, although definitely unnatural, was soothing to Jyou. The same chalky gray that came from his crest whenever Ikkakumon had digivolved! Any doubt in his mind was erased. It _had _to have been him doing this. It was meant for him, the bearer of the Reliability crest. The further down the staircase, the easier it became to swim, it was almost like gravity had returned and he was almost able to walk. Stranger things had happened. The brick lining the side walls were polished from being under water, except what looked like claw marks… fingers? Jyou brushed the side of the wall and in between bricks, the mortar had been pried loose by several small finger marks. Could that have been Mimi who made those marks when she was down here before?

And how was he still holding his breath?

Without knowing why, possessed by some knowledge telling him to do so, Jyou exhaled.

And inhaled.

He was breathing underwater! How was this possible? The farther down the stairway he went, the easier it became. Could this have something to do with it being his crest above this castle? Was it possible that magic was somehow involved?

How would he explain this to… anyone?

The water had thinned out, he could easily pull himself forward, still able to hover in the water if he pleased or walk plainly down the stony steps as if he was walking down a flight of stairs at school. It was easier not to think about it and just keep moving forward to see what was down here.

The stairs ended, leading Jyou into what may have once been a basement, but the grayish glow showed all natural features of what might have been on the ocean floor. There were piles of stones, the floor was sand, and seaweed tangled itself into the stone walls. But aside from the calm ebb of water, nothing moved but Jyou's chest as he breathed in the water.

Jyou pulled himself with a weak front stroke towards a pile of oddly shaped stones… no, not stones.

Their digivices.

_What the heck?_ Jyou thought to himself. In Koushiro-like rationalizing he began to theorize to himself.

The digivices… _their_ digivices were how they first got to the Digital World, all those years ago at summer camp. That was a fact. When Daisuke, Miyako and Iori's D3's materialized, they too were able to join them. Ken also. So, did that mean that since the small devices were essentially the _key_ to the Digital World, that they could be the keys to other worlds also?

Jyou took a heavy breath in, still not comfortable with the idea of breathing under water, as if the thoughts raging inside his mind regarding inter-world travel was normal in comparison.

But, their square-ish digivices couldn't open portals. There had to be an open portal to the Digital World in order to use the digivces to transport themselves. So they weren't keys as much as the vehicles to travel by.

But the D3's could open the portals! Jyou remembered Australia with Iori, and how one of the younger Digidestined had to be present because only they could open a portal.

So were their bluish-gray digivices the ones able to open the portal to Orenda?

With an unsteady hand, Jyou brushed over the Digivices. One, two… four, five six. There were six. He knew his by some inexplicable force and clutched his fingers around it. If his was here, and there were six in all… that confirmed that all of the older six were somewhere in Orenda… save for Koushiro, Jyou knew that already. And surely, if the others were all here, then Koushiro would too! There was a jump in Jyou's chest. This made so much sense! Jyou gathered the digivices and dropped them in his shirt, folding it up into a makeshift pouch. If they arrived in Orenda because of their digivices, perhaps they could be used to return home! The energy inside them was incomprehensible, even Koushiro in all his wisdom was unable to decipher the data inside. Was it possible that in the palm of his hand, he and the other five older digidestined held something with the power to travel to any universe out there? There had to be more than just the ones he knew of. Jyou shivered at the thought.

With the six digivices enclosed in the fold of his shirt, Jyou pushed off the ground to return to the staircase and swim back to the surface. His eye caught something nestled in the sand, not ten feet from where he found the digivices. Bright green and red… plastic? That definitely didn't belong down here.

Jyou inched his way over and covered beneath a light dusting of sand were the green and red D3's belonging to Takeru and Miyako respectively. Jyou's heart leapt, but not in the excitement of realization as it had before, but one drenched in worry. If their six digivices had opened up a portal to Orenda, did that mean the D3's were able to transport the younger Digidestined, reversing the roles of how it was for the Digital World? Or made it possible for them to find their own ways in?

Adding the green and red D3's to his stockpile, Jyou scanned the surroundings for the others. Not too far away was the pink and black D3's, resting on a jutting out brick. If the six original digivices were together, denoting that the older digidestined arrived at the same time, did this mean Takeru and Miyako came separately from Ken and Hikari?

The possibilities of what that meant couldn't focus enough for Jyou to even ponder them. Not to mention the reasons why Iori and Daisuke's D3's were nowhere to be found. Jyou sighed, hoping that meant the two boys were still at home.

If the universe had somehow made a landing pad of sorts for the older kids, giving them identities and lives to come into upon arriving in Orenda, what did that mean for the younger kids who came on their own will? Jyou shuddered at the thought of any of them being discovered and the fate that might befall them if they were to cross paths with any of the men who had a hand in Jim's fate. Or, if their naiveté betrayed them and the truth of his and his friends' identities… Jyou silently hoped that finding these digivices would lead them one step closer to avoiding that fate and getting everyone home safely.

Jyou planned it out in his head: get the digivices, swim back to the surface, explain his theories to the others, go to the castle to find Yamato (and hopefully the others) and somehow being all together with the digivices would trigger some anomaly, opening a portal leading them straight home.

Logically, the first four steps were all he had. Jyou reached for the pink D3, adding it to his now-awkwardly full cluster of digivices and returned to the ledge to add Ken's black one.

Even before his fingers had fully clutched around the black and white contrasting plastic, the pain struck him like nothing natural nor mechanized, all-encompassing and mind numbing. There was nothing but pain. It was burning at the same time it was ice cold. Every nerve in his body, not just the ones from his hand, was dying, screaming out their last cries of anguish, pleas for relief, for the pain to stop.

And then it did.

Jyou collapsed to his knees, the black D3 tumbling off the rocky ledge and landing on the sand, sending some up in a smoke like ring around it. The device glowed once, a bright light that pierced the grayish one as if it had been dust, and then went blank again. Jyou shuddered as he collected all of the digivices that fell out of his makeshift satchel, leaving the black digivice for last.

As he reached for it, his hand shaking, he touched it lightly and retracted his hand as if he burned it on a stove. But there was no pain.

He touched it again, letting his finger linger for a moment, and without the onset of any sensation other than the cool plastic of the now unlit device, he clutched it in his hand, his eyes sharing looks of awe and disbelief. There was no way he had imagined that kind of agony. But there was no remnant of it. Nothing.

Jyou added the black digivice to the rest and headed back to the stairs to bring his friends the digivices and the knowledge that was now laced through them and every fibre of his body.


	39. The Return

So this chapter is very aptly named! I'm very sorry about the long wait, hopefully all is good with you guys! I am currently participating in NaNoWriMo, but I'm incorporating this story into my word count so ideally I'll get three or four updates posted… THIS MONTH! That's exciting haha!

Anyway, please enjoy and I'd love to hear from you =)

**CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT**

Koushiro had watched the royal wedding.

If anyone had ever looked at him strangely, wordlessly calling him out on knowing too much about Wills & Kate, he blamed it on the tirade of online coverage, how it was utterly inescapable during those months before and after.

But in fact, he had stayed up and watched the entire thing with his mother. It was fascinating to him how two people could garner so much worldwide attention. While he was sitting beside his mother, she wearing the ratty Union Jack scarf she had gotten on a trip to London when she was eighteen, a bowl of cold popcorn between the two, and his laptop resting on his folded legs, billions of others were doing the same. More or less. 

A pang of homesickness ran its grip down Koushiro's stomach, but passed. That wasn't the point.

The point was the uniform he and Takeru had managed to wrangle up looked eerily like the one Prince William wore on his wedding day. But neither Koushiro nor Takeru were facing anything like that, instead it was something much more foreboding. He couldn't put his finger on exactly what, but there was a feeling nestled in the pit of Koushiro's stomach that was a far cry from missing his mother who had been "happy-sobbing" beside him on the couch that day, and wasn't fading nearly as fast.

It was the feeling of writing an exam and you can just feel the teacher behind you, not saying anything but silently judging you by the words written in messy scrawl on your paper. The soldier sidled up beside Koushiro, and the redhead wanted to sink into his own body and evade any chance of scrutiny. Evade any opportunity of this other red-clad youth to silently judge Koushiro and find out, much like in his own AP-Calculus class… he doesn't belong.

"Keep an eye on her, eh?"

Koushiro almost asked the soldier to repeat his words but the meaning caught up in a second wind of Koushiro's thoughts. It wasn't he who needed to worry about being outed as an imposter, he let his eyes meet the target that the soldier's haphazard nod had set.

Miyako.

At first considering just to agree and avoid any further confrontation, he went against his better judgement and pushed, "Why her?"

The solider, a young man maybe two or three older than Koushiro himself, gave a smirk. "Claims she's from Peri. I, myself, fancy the Perians, beautiful species of human beings. That-" he paused and shoved a thumb in the direction of Miyako. "-is no more a Perian lady than you or me, my friend."

A misplaced thought found itself in Koushiro's mind: If this older boy was in Koushiro's school and not in Orenda, he would have been what Taichi would have named "a tool". Not that Koushiro was one to use those kind of names, but partly in defense of Miyako and the other just in plain disgust, Koushiro strongly wished to.

"I'll watch her." He said instead.

The soldier nodded. "Thanks. Might have just been the… oddling of the bunch but when I heard a Perian had arrived, did not expect what we are both seeing. I haven't seen you too much before, you must be stationed mostly indoors. It's Terran by the way."

Koushiro thought better of ignoring Terran's all-over-the-place introduction, the guy had made up Koushiro's own background information for an alibi.

"Izzy." He replied, using the moniker that Amunet and Sein had concocted. "And yes, mostly inside."

Terran nodded, satisfied and continued his rounds circling the ballroom. It seemed less like he was patrolling and doing his job than scoping out all the girls who were dressed up around the room, like an animal selecting his prey.

Koushiro stopped and let the anxiety of being discovered fade for a moment and another nervousness set in. He let his gaze twitch to where Yamato sat, almost unreadable at the front of the room but no doubt as uneasy as the other digidestined in the room. Hanging above his head were six woven banners, gigantic in size and even moreso in meaning. The throne itself was inlaid with jewels depicting Taichi's crest of courage. Koushiro wondered how that made Yamato feel, if anything. It was impossible not to think about how in their own adventures, Taichi was the leader of their group. Yamato was his foil.

But now, in Orenda, some force found it necessary to make Yamato the prince. Yamato was the leader, not of a group of eight children, but of an entire world. Did that mean Taichi, in this world, would be his hindrance? No, that was impossible. Even in another world, Taichi would still be Taichi. The alternative was too dire to consider.

But where was Taichi? The possibilities were more than tempting to obsess about. Was Taichi searching for the others or had he found himself woven in some predicament almost as calamitous as this? The likelihood that Taichi and the others weren't in this world didn't even occur as plausible anymore. It didn't seem likely for this to be a coincidence, and that Koushiro was only here with Yamato and Jyou, who Yamato had encountered. Miyako and Takeru claimed all of the original digidestined had disappeared, why would Orenda be the landing spot of just three of them, and if so, why would Takeru and Miyako be called here if there was not some greater force calling them as well?

Koushiro snapped out of his web of thoughts at the sound of a slamming door. It wasn't the gigantic doors that lead to the ballroom, now closed. It was coming from beyond them and Koushiro felt a jolt of uneasiness singe through him. He quickly flashed Yamato a look, and the same uneasiness penetrated through his previously unreadable stature.

He felt it too.

Even though the slam came from beyond the entry to the ballroom, he could not look away from those doors. Not everyone noticed. A couple of the soldiers stiffened, a few girls let out small shrieks of alarm, but giggled afterwards and returned to their conversations. But Koushiro could not look away from the gigantic wooden doors that had been closed hours ago, all Koushiro could think was that they were _trapped_.

That was it. They were trapped in here, this gigantic, extravagant room with crowds that seemed to be overjoyed at the prospect of what they were experiencing. A ball, a good, old fashioned, fairy-tale variety ball, prince included. But that's not what Koushiro saw. Everything seemed to blur, to fade into nonexistence aside from Takeru surrounded by armed guards, ready at any moment to discover he and Koushiro himself did not belong and bestow some unpleasant fate upon them. Miyako, although she looked as if she belonged in this room full of elegantly dressed young women, Terran hadn't been the only one who had raised suspicious; there had been more than a few duos of gossipers passing by Koushiro's post saying how she did not resemble a Perian in any way. What if someone discovered she in fact was an imposter? And the last figure that Koushiro's vision was able to focus upon sat at the front of the room in an over-upholstered grand chair. A throne.

There was another large sound, but this time, there was movement accompanying it.

The ballroom doors opened. Not slowly like they should have but fast and hard. Those were solid wood doors, there was no way someone- even multiple someones- could manually open them with such force.

It was like something out of an animated movie. The doors steadied themselves after slamming into their adjacent walls. Flushed with shadows a figure stood, framed by the now wide-open doors and the party stopped. The band silenced and everyone turned to face the figure who took one step forward, the shadow slowly falling off as if it was a sheet he was walking through.

The features became clearer. Was it-?

"KEN!" Miyako's shriek interrupted Koushiro's thoughts. The girl abandoned any reservation related to being careful of being discovered and flung herself towards Ken. But Koushiro noticed it before she did.

Something was wrong.

Tears streamed down Miyako's face, sobbing without caring who she pushed aside and what they were whispering but as she reached Ken and enveloped her arms around him, his face tilted and Koushiro gasped. It was a face, a look… an expression he hadn't seen for over three years. He opened his mouth to say something, to warn Miyako but again, he wasn't fast enough.

"GET OFF ME!" Ken hollered. He lifted his arm and waved it, flourishing an invisible cape and Miyako's body was rocketed away from his, slamming into a wall.

The fear of getting discovered evaporated. This was beyond that now. Koushiro ran to Miyako and helped her up. "I- I… I don't understand." The words came from her lips, broken and shaking.

"He's… reverted. Something is happening." He intended his words to be a comfort, not emotionally but to appeal to the logical side of her that he knew existed. But that side was gone now.

The screaming was deafening. Half the soldiers were rushing the women to the far side of the room while the other half were nearing on Ken. Mere flicks of his wrists and flourishes of his arms sent red-clad soldiers flying. Koushiro saw Terran land on the wall and heard a crack that made him avert his eyes, fearful of the near-stranger's fate.

Koushiro knew it had to be one of them to do something. Him, Yamato, Takeru or Miyako. But Miyako was incapacitated and he could not voice anything of this to her. There was no reasoning with her. Where was Yamato? He turned around and there was the prince, standing in front of the throne with a circle on guards surrounding him. Maybe their intention was protect him, but it looked, and Koushiro was sure it felt to Yamato, that he was held captive.

Another voice echoed from the hallway. High and distinctly female, calling for Ken. Beckoning him, taunting him. Calling for the Emperor.

And Koushiro knew exactly who it was.

But there was someone else who knew first.

"Hikari, no! Don't come in here!" Takeru's nervousness that had been present since he was reunited with Yamato and Koushiro disappeared. The blond boy ran, full speed towards the door, screaming at the disembodied voice to stay away from the danger that they thought they had already defeated.

Ken let out a hybrid of a laugh and a snarl as he made a slashing motion in the air that knocked Takeru onto his back. The blond let out a shout, a gasp of pain but hurried to rise again.

Again, Ken knocked him down.

"Doesn't this seem familiar?" Ken sneered as he walked towards his teammate and lifted a foot, placed it on Takeru's chest and pressed down.

The blonde screamed out in pain. Black wiry jolts of what looked like electricity escaped from Ken's body and surged into Takeru's chest, making the cries louder and louder, only widening the contorted grin on Ken's face.

Koushiro didn't see her enter, and thankfully neither did Ken. Hikari threw herself into the ballroom, knocking the reincarnated villain off of Takeru. Koushiro clutched Miyako tighter, he could feel her slipping down.

Ken righted himself as Hikari helped Takeru up. They looked at each other, a thousand things floating in the air between them, but silent apologies and words of thanks were interrupted by Ken waving his arm again, sending Takeru flying backwards.

But Hikari was still standing, untouched.

Ken tried again, commanding an invisible force to send the small girl to a bone shattering venture to a wall. But nothing happened.

She opened her mouth to speak, but her words were drowned out by Ken's frustrated, wordless shouts.

Koushiro's attention was diverted from Ken to the open doors behind him. It seemed to be getting darker and darker, but there was a small group rushing towards the room. He braced himself and Miyako, but relaxed when he saw who it was.

A group of burly looking men were led by Amunet, Ari and Tevy with Sein being helped by the Givon brothers and Baldy. "Hikari!" Ari screamed. "It's coming!"

Confusion of how Hikari knew the Orendian researchers was overshadowed by Koushiro half-expecting an ogre to be following his former company. Instead, a wave of darkness followed them in as if it was a tangible being.

"Why won't you fall!?" Ken shouted at Hikari as if he was oblivious to the circling blackness.

Pity and what might have been guilt etched itself on the brunette's face. "Seven brings chaos and darkness without fail!"

Ken, not understanding-although, neither did Koushiro flousihed again to no avail. Hikari stood up straighter. "I can't fall to darkness." Her small voice echoed in the room, everyone faced her with fear and some kind of bizarre reverence. "Because I am light."

With that, the darkness fell like a heavy blanket onto Ken, his features barely visible and a crushing fear inked itself onto him. As if he was a puppet and the puppeteer dropped the strings, he dropped to the floor, completely limp. His bones were twigs, his muscles liquefied. Ken Ichijouji, the once fearsome Digimon Emperor, was a still pile of mangled body on the marble castle floor.

Koushiro could feel a cry well up in Miyakos being, her whole body seized perfectly still before completely relaxing. He loosened his restrain on her, but only to ease her fall to her knees, the scream he had felt build inside of her body escaped as a weak whimper. But he did not let her go. He could not let the girl run to him. Now that the supernatural villain was debilitated, they were looking for someone else to blame and who knew what the guards would do to the false Perian?

But even if he had released her, it wouldn't have done much good because right at the moment, the entire room was doused in a darkness incomparable to any Koushiro had ever been surrounded by. He couldn't see, he felt deaf, he felt numb. There was nothing, no existence other than the darkness.


	40. Thoughts and Voices

_To apologize for the mercilessly long wait for the chapter, it is something that I promise you've been looking forward to for the majority of this fic. I hope you enjoy it and I'd love to hear from you :) _

_**CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE**_

"Don't touch them."

Jyou's scream still echoed in Sora's head, and probably in everyone else's. His voice had cracked, almost laughably if his face hadn't conveyed pure terror.

They looked harmless, laying in the center of the boat where Jyou had dumped them when he had resurfaced. He had explained about the pain that had shocked him after touching Ken's, but then how it had stopped. Taichi had asked why he was so uptight if the pain stopped, and Jyou had given some well-intentioned answer along the lines of "just in case".

He had then gone on to theorize that Ken must be in great danger. He couldn't give any evidence or reasoning beyond "I just know it", but luckily Koushiro wasn't around to contradict this so they could go on his proofless testimony.

Hours had passed, two… maybe three. Sora knew that it was just a guess, but small distractions like what time it was kept her from bigger thoughts. Why her digivice was in some oceanic cavern. How was Yamato. Would they find the others. Was going home even possible.

They were no longer questions. They were all consuming intangible beings that coexisted in her brain. Thinking of the time was distracting, and that was enough for now.

Jyou and Taichi had put to use the oars that were laying at the bottom of their small boat, and with the combination of the time that passed and their effort… well Taichi's effort and Jyou's… attempt, they soon reached the shore.

Everything was dark. There was nothing to see but black forms climbing up a hill in the distance where a grand castle stood, only visible by flickering candlelight in each of its windows.

She was no longer Sora Takenouchi with Jyou Kido, Taichi Yagami and Mimi Tachikawa, digidestined. She was a princess with a doctor, a pirate and a recently transformed mermaid. There was a plot, something that had to be followed in order to get home. It was the only way to get back, to follow the fairy tale and find the ending. It seemed like a lifetime ago, running with Catherine to get somewhere.

_The ball._

A guttural animal sound startled Sora as a cantering broke past a darkened mass, presumably bushes by the sound it emitted. There was neighing. A horse? The shape slowed and found Jyou despite the lack of light.

The image of a terribly wounded, although not yet physically, Jyou flashed back into Sora's mind. Again, another lifetime ago.

"Hey." Jyou muttered to the animal. "I think you're going to have to help me yet again."

xxx

Sora, Taichi and Mimi entered the palace through the massive stone doorway. Even though they were alarmed at the darkness all the way back at the beach, it was just as staggering with the castle being illuminated just by a few flickering candles. None of the gigantic torches were lit, no stars hung in the sky, and a moon could not be found even despite the clear, cloudless sky.

"While Jyou finds the horse a hiding spot, I'm going to find some clothes that are a little more... castle-y." Taichi spoke the words under his breath, clearly just as perturbed by the silent castle as she.

Mimi made a mousy squeaking noise as she protested, "Not happening! We can't split up. I've seen enough horror movies and episodes of Scooby Doo. Splitting up only ends badly."

Taichi only found her warning amusing. "Well, lucky that you've got Velma here to protect you, Daph. And Fred should be back in a sec. I'll be back before you can say _Zoinks_."

Not waiting to hear her defense or comeback to his joke, he dashed up the spiralling stairs with his hand tracing the stone wall as his guide.

"He's such a jerk." Mimi whispered, with nothing more than fear and worry caressing her words.

"It'll be okay." Sora comforted as she reached out her hand to the other girl. Both clad in Sora's princess dresses, they could presumably fit in. Sure they were dirty and torn in choice places but the darkness did suit their need in this singular instance.

Mimi accepted Sora's hand and, her voice still whispering, asked, "Are you sure there's supposed to be a ball?"

Sora replayed the days in her head, days that were eternities separated only by sunrise and sunset. Yes, it was definitely tonight. But Mimi's doubt was not unjustified, where was everyone?

"Who goes there?!" A firm, commanding voice broke the eerie silence.

In the dim light, Sora could make out no more than his red admiral-esque uniform. "S-Sora. Princess Sora from the textile district."

"Ah yes, I had noted your absence. And this must be Catherine? Almost as lovely as the as the princess herself."

Mimi made an indignant noise. Whether it was from being mistaken for Catherine or the comparison to Sora, Sora chose to disregard it.

"Yes, and I need some assistance with my things... outside." Sora gave the soldier directions to a point as opposite of Jyou as she could in a manner that felt so foreign on her tongue. "This darkness is quite the inconvenience."

"Sorry, m'lady. There been... a situation." He chuckled in a way that let Sora know this was majorly understated. All soldiers are required to go to the great hall to ease the panic."

"Best be going then." Sora offered.

He paused, suspicion edging his words. "And you won't be joining me? Can't have you wandering the castle unprotected."

The silence went on for a moment too long.

"SORA!"

The voice was dulled by the sound of smashing stone and dozens of clumsy footsteps treading through it. A particularly forcefully dislodged stone conveniently hit the suspicious soldier hard enough so that he toppled over, unconscious.

"Hikari! What are you doing here?!"

The youngest of the three girls choked on what was something between a sob and a laugh. "I found you!" She dove into the arms of the two older girls, but Sora's attention was diverted to her company. Well over a dozen men stood, helping out mismatched strangers. But the large men all stared, questions in their heads that they were too afraid to form out loud. But Sora knew before any of them could speak.

"Taichi's fine."

The sounds of relief and awe were almost deafening. Sora checked the soldier once more, but no stirring.

Men still were coming out from the hole on the wall as Mimi clutched Hikari's coat. Surely the sight of her clothes from home offered Mimi some kind of solace the girl's presence alone hadn't.

The last one to climb out of the wall was one of only four women. Petite and fragile, curls fell out of the blanket she had shaped as a hood, curls the same colour as the ring Sora wore.

"Catherine!" Sora gasped as she pushed through the pirates and strangers to reach the French Digidestined's counterpart.

"YOURE SAFE!" Catherine gasped as she fell into Sora's arms, sobbing words that Sora couldn't catch all of, but with "Willis" "Fighting" "stayed" she drew a conclusion that forced her to pull the crying girl closer to her chest.

This commotion was not enough to wake the unconscious solider, but a gigantic set of solid wood doors creaked open. A tough voice from inside, barked in that strange accent, "You... and you! Check what the commotion is! And bring the civilian girl to the dungeons while you're at it!"

Sora's heart skipped a beat. Could she hide? Could she run? Yes, perhaps, but there was no way she could bring all her friends with her without leaving someone to blame. And even though the pirates could be easy targets, Taichi was theirs. She could never do that to people who protected him so fearlessly. Then there were the strangers among the pirates... but how could an old man and two women, one who did look a bit familiar, and a couple others be blamed for breaking through a solid stone wall. There was no escaping whatever was coming through those doors.

Sora closed her eyes in the childish way a toddler would. _If I can't see it, it's not happening. _

"S-Sora?" A young voice broke.

Sora's eyes flew open with the name on her lips. "Takeru!?"

After making sure the huge doors were shut behind him, Koushiro shared the same expression of incredulous surprise, with Miyako clutched in his arm.

The first person Koushiro saw was Mimi, he took a double take before letting his jaw drop. "But you were a... You—re… where's your … You're human?"

Mimi snorted, and not loud enough that Koushiro could hear, she retorted, "Yeah, not like what you were telling everyone after we broke up!"

Sora held back the smile from her retort when she noticed that Koushiro wasn't holding Miyako up wholly for the act. Her cocoa coloured eyes were fogged over and puffy, and her lips were forming unreadable words. She lethargically raised her head until someone caught her eye. Before anyone knew what was going on, she jumped forward and slapped Hikari across the face. "This is all _your_ fault!" Hikari stood, stunned at her friend until the lilac head of curls crumbled into the brunette's arms.

"Catherine?" Takeru's voice found it's way through the sobs. It was not so much glad or relieved, even surprised. Mostly confused. Catherine perked up for a moment, and it was heartbreaking. The blue eyes, shaggy blonde hair, the same age and basic stature… but as the similarities ended her realization grew and she turned away, a broken sob escaping her lips.

Feeling like a pre-school teacher, Sora did a third headcount. Who was still missing? Her gaze caught Takeru noticing Hikari for the first time, scanned past the strangers warmly greeting Koushiro, and rested on the entrance where they had arrived. Had Jyou come in? Surely it wouldn't have been that hard to find a stable. If all the movies Sora had ever watched on the topic proved true, the guests of a ball must have gotten her by carriage, pulled by horses. And a castle must have somewhere to valet those horses, right? Sora shook the irrelevant thoughts from her head as she watched Jyou hobble in. In the flickering candlelight she could see him a bit clearer than from the light of their single lantern. He was sore, it was clear, but he was forcing himself to carry through. Despite their travels and his injuries, he looked worse for wear than she had thought. Poor Jyou.

Clearly not as observant as Sora, Koushiro gasped as he noticed the older boy. With an overenthusiastic exclamation of his name, the redhead bounded towards Jyou and enveloped the latter in a hug so uncharacteristic of the reserved Koushiro.

"OW! OW! OW! PAIN! STOP!" Jyou cried, as with a startled step back Koushiro strung words of apology faster than Sora could catch them all. With a sore groan, Jyou returned a weak smile and patted his friend on the shoulder.

Sora stifled a giggle. Despite everything: the stress, the worry, the exhaustion… it was wonderful to be almost fully reunited. For a moment, everything was okay.

"So, what's the plan?"

Sora recognized Taichi's voice without looking. She could hear its vibrato even over Jyou's groaning, Koushiro's rambling and Hikari's manic whispers of explanation to Takeru. She knew his voice anywhere. Her heart sunk for an unexplainable reason as she turned to reply.

Tenderly rubbing his jaw, Taichi jumped down the last step from the tower to join the rest of the digidestined in the grand foyer. Sora was speechless as she stared a moment too long. His well-worn captains garb was replaced by a similar but more regal ensemble. His mass of brown hair was neatly combed and his face was newly shaven, giving flush to his skin.

Time stopped. Things Sora had long since pushed out of her mind wandered back in. Wanting to go to prom with him, mentally planning their outfits and in a silly mood sharing that with him. And he, so unlike him, was excited. Taichi, in all his… Taichiness, was _excited_ to go to prom with her. He had laughed and said there was no way he'd wear pruple to match her so they compromised with blue. He said he'd buy a corsage from her mother's store because Sora's mother was traditional like that. But Sora had laughed and said they'd steal a random blue flower when she wasn't looking and it would be the perfect corsage. Then she had laughed at him for being mushy and pushed him off the couch, he pulled her and laughed when she fell on him and they kissed.

Sora blinked the memory away. God, he looked so handsome. What if things had worked out differently… that seemed so long ago. Now she was planning to go to that same prom with Yamato and match a purple dress with a purple dress shirt.

Why were these feelings coming back?

Taichi grinned and opened his mouth to say something, maybe to repeat what he had said before or to tease Sora on the fact that she was fidgeting like she was powerless to stop a stampede of large, angry digimon coming her way.

"Sora."

The two syllables didn't come from Taichi. Her name was spoken softly and gently but strong. Confident. Familiar.

She turned around and there he was. Goosebumps creped down her arm and her heart sped up... but there were no thoughts. No thoughts to push away or fight off, no thoughts to invent to get away from less pleasant thoughts. There was nothing.

Nothing but him.

Prince Charming.


	41. Hope

_**CHAPTER FORTY**_

Something had changed.

Takeru couldn't explicitly point it out, couldn't exactly explain but it was there. Something had shifted on the plane of their existence. Not that he believed that they, the twelve of them, really only existed on a plane... more like a tangled web of existing that rivaled any mangled headphone set that he had ever found in the depths of his pockets.

He could handle the Orenda thing. As insane as it was, it wasn't like he hadn't lived through crazier, that was for sure. He had found Yamato and reunited with Hikari. Everything was ticked off his bucket list from this crazy experience.

But a feeling in his core twinged. He wasn't done. None of them were finished here, in this place. They were only getting started.

It was like looking at is friends, laughing and joking -however uneasily- at a costume party. Everyone was decked out in some crazy costume that belonged in a flashback episode of Once Upon a Time. Except him and Hikari.

She was visibly exhausted. She'd explained as much as she could. Meeting with Ken, getting to the Dark Ocean, watching Ken disappear...

Her guilt only thickened as Takeru explained his version. Miyako had been leaning on Hikari, barely a shell of the girl they knew, even of the one that had traveled here with Takeru. She didn't even move or flinch when Takeru got to the particularly gritty parts of the story. Something was gone from her.

Now Hikari sat against the half collapsed wall, Miyako curled up beside her, head in the brunette's lap. Hikari stroked her head absently while thousands of things were going through her head. Takeru could tell by her expression that she had so many things on her mind she was fighting to even keep them all straight. He could just tell with that girl. His girl. Suddenly their fight seemed so stupid, infantile even.

He clenched his fists. All he wanted to do was hold her. Forget everything and just be them together. But there were apologies and explanations and everything in between blockading the way there. And there was Catherine.

Catherine... or, Catherine's Doppelganger stayed close by Sora's side like a blonde shadow. Yamato was pulling Sora close, explaining everything as fast as he could, presumably, as Alter-Catherine surveyed him suspiciously. It was strange... even though he knew it wasn't truly Catherine, it still felt like it was. And even stranger, he didn't particularly want to talk to her. He only wanted to talk with Hikari.

But too much time had passed out here. The other guards would want to know what was going on. Koushiro and Takeru were supposed to be part of their force, guarding a false prince who had just come to check on them. This was going to end badly.

"Shouldn't someone have come out by now?" Koushiro whispered as he quietly walked up beside Takeru. "We've been out here for awhile. This can't last much longer..."

Takeru nodded, his attention still on Hikari who finally noticed. Their eyes locked for a moment before she lifted Miyako off her lap, the violet-haired girl was startled momentarily but let her friend stand.

Takeru, Koushiro and Hikari separated themselves from the rest of the group and found a window. Takeru had adjusted to the darkness, but wished some light would come back. Bad things happened in the dark. If they had a hope of surviving whatever would come their way without giant angels, wolves and dinosaurs... they at least needed some light.

"It looks like a little Christmas village." Hikari whispered. Takeru turned to see where she was looking, out the window. The mountain cascaded down into the village, a blanket of darkness with lights- flickering candles in the windows. The non-abandoned ones, at least. Takeru shivered. She pursed her lips, her pale skin looked almost translucent in the barely present light. Hikari let out a small breath and then spoke: "Seven brings chaos and darkness without fail."

Confused, Takeru gave Koushiro a questioning look that was answered by a shrug. The redhead left the window to join some of the non-digidestined strangers who had been uneasily keeping to themselves.

"It's a prophecy." She continued after he had left. "We're familiar with those, aren't we?" She gave a weak smile.

The last prophecy the two had faced together seemed like a lifetime ago. But aside from the missing characters of Angemon and Angewomon, all the other ingredients were here. Their brothers, their friends, life-altering chaos and potential danger. The two of them together.

"As long as no one has to shoot me." Takeru offered weakly. "I don't think the guards are carrying digital magical swords or guns."

Hikari tightened her lips and nodded. "I think our crests are in play in this world."

"Just the older guys' ones." Takeru corrected. "They're all on tapestries in there. Taichi even has a throne with his. Not helpful for toning down his ego." Takeru made the joke and gave a harnessed grin which Hikari didn't return. It was too tense.

"But ours are in the prophecy: _Six is balance until evil tips the scale. Seven brings chaos and darkness without fail. Eight is hope for those who will come to be. A miracle arises, brings forth destiny: ceasing the fight. With this, the ninth will unfold, and this is light._ Hope and light. I don't think we're there yet. I'm guessing, from what you told me, Ken was the evil tipping the scale. We're still with the darkness, I'd say that's fair to say." She motioned around.

Takeru nodded. "Trust me, you missed some major chaos too."

She shuddered as if a chill had come through. "And I don't think that's the end of it."

Takeru didn't want to admit it out loud, but he could feel she was right.

Almost proving her right, the formerly closed wooden doors opened. "Your highness?" a young, naive looking solider tentatively called for Yamato.

Takeru watched as his brother confidently walked through the small crowd that had gathered in the hall of the castle. "I'd like to welcome some latecomers."

The young soldier was pushed aside by the curly haired soldier from earlier. His jaw dropped at the sight of their company and swung around to glare at Taichi, "Pirate!" he spat the words as if they were laced with poison.

Taichi returned the glare with recognition and equal distaste. He opened his mouth to speak but the curly haired solider interrupted.

"Dressed up nice, groomed… underneath it all you are still vermin!" He reached for his belt and pulled out a sword. The rough looking men took a step closer to Taichi, pushing everyone else behind them.

"Pell, stop! What the hell!" Yamato rushed to interfere but Pell spat at him, bending his arm and shoving the hilt of his sword into Takeru's brother's chest, knocking him back.

Taichi rushed forward, his men not moving but watching him carefully. "Hey! None of that! He's your... prince." He spoke the title half-seriously.

Pell held the sword in front of him, pointing it back to Taichi. "I've got the kingdom watching and I could send a message with only half a dozen men. That was only my opening statement." He motioned back to Yamato, who had steadied himself and was reaching for his own sword.

Taichi stiffly shook his head at his best friend and spoke back to Pell. "I can beat that… I'll send you a message with only one finger." Ignoring his comment, Pell shoved his sword in Taichi's direction. "Fine, two player it is." Taichi retorted.

Takeru caught Hikari's attention, her eyes filled with worry and alarm. "Get them out!"

She nodded furiously, gathering Miyako and reaching for the unfamiliar girl standing beside Koushiro.

Jyou pushed through the burly men surrounding Taichi and called towards Hikari. "Up there! Bring them up there!" He pointed off to the side where stairs spiraled upwards into a tower. Hikari nodded and motioned for all the bystanders to safety. Sora slid past the action and through the doors where audible panic gave the clanging swords a soundtrack. She came back through the doors with a dozen similarly dressed girls and Yamato grimaced.

"Takeru!" He motioned for his brother and they began pushing aside other confused soldiers to make way for the princesses.

Takeru had defended enough to watch Sora trail the last of the guests up into the tower as a soldier who had evidently clued in enough to go on the offensive swung his beefy arm into Takeru's chest, knocking him back into the throne room.

"You pirate!" The obese solider wailed as he sent a punch into Takeru's cheek. His head spun just enough to see Hikari running down the stairs. A third blow sent Takeru flying back into the stone wall. Takeru could see red as he felt blood seep into his eye. He heared Yamato let out a grunt as the obese soldier toppled over and Hikari ran to Takeru's side.

"Are you okay?" She wiped the blood from his face with her sleeve and brushed rubble from the wall out of his hair.

"I'm fine." Takeru lifted himself up with a groan and turned to see where the brick chipped from the wall, a moderate sized curvature in the stone glistened. He gave Hikari a look and she stepped over the fallen soldier and reached for his holstered weapon, shoving the hilt of the sword into the crumbling stone with all the might in her tiny body.

As the dust cleared and Takeru reached to pull off the cracked stone, both of them gasped. The glistening began to visibly shine brightly, a giant beacon flashed out and one by one, the candles in the giant chandelier above them flickered on. None of the torches, none of the scones. Just the chandelier about them. Just enough. When the immediate beam of light lessened from the wall it was there, undeniably. A sun shape peaking over a simply drawn mountain. The crest of hope.

"Eight is hope," Hikari whispered as she tucked her hand into Takeru's. "For those who will come to be."

"The others!" Takeru gasped and both of them sprung up, trailed by Yamato out to the main foyer. The scene that lay in front of them made the older blonde let out a small chuckle. "I guess, maybe now we have a chance in hell."

Taichi stood, surrounded by red-clad soldiers completely frozen. Each was a stone statue, the same likeness but completely still. Taichi's fellow pirates laughed as one by one, they pushed the soldiers over and they toppled to the ground, limbs still posed in battle, like life-sized plastic toys.

Takeru watched as Taichi, a crooked grin across his face, knocked a completely frozen Pell over with his elbow.


	42. Tied Together

_**CHAPTER FORTY-ONE**_

Hikari sighed as Amunet took over. As permanently engrained as the prophecy was in her mind, she felt like every time she repeated those lines, it was a little more exhausting than the time before. Amunet knew what she was talking about. She studied it, things like this was her life's work. Hikari's life's work was saving unknown universes apparently, but of course no one could know that.

It was strange standing around the soldiers that, only moments ago were trying to kill her brother; now they were little more than decorative furniture pieces. To prove her point, Taichi and Yamato were using a particularly large soldier as a foot rest as they listened to Amunet, with occasional cut ins from Sein and the others.

They were inaudible at first, but as they got closer the sound of frantic footsteps fumbled their way down the spiral staircase in the corner of the room. Hikari's immediate reaction was alarm, until she saw a frazzled Miyako leap the last stone step, her gown bunched in her arms and panic plastered on her face.

"What the hell happed?" The words escaped in between pants. When she caught her breath, Miyako elaborated. "All of a sudden everyone just froze except me! What's going on?"

Before Amunet or anyone else could explain, there was another set of footsteps. These, the opposite of Miyako's only moments earlier, were the opposite. Slow, drudging, confused steps. Irregular but deliberate they came closer. Through the only light given off, the still flickering lights of the chandelier in the ballroom, Hikari could make out a figure. Soon there were features. Long, slim limbs, but hunched over. In pain and confusion.

Ken.

Everyone held their breath. Was it him or had he not reverted back? The soldiers who had been guarding him had obviously froze as well, but had he just escaped or was the prophesized hope for him too, breaking whatever spell he had been put under?

He took a deep breath in and no one made a noise. No one ran away, no one rushed to greet him. Everyone waited.

Ken's voice broke. "Miyako?"

The sense of relief was tangible as everyone relaxed. Miyako ran to him in a violent hurricane of sobs and words that mushed together in the intelligible storm. Hikari winced as Miyako crashed into Ken, who was probably weak and tired. But he stood strong, wrapping his arms tightly around the girl's trembling frame and whispering into her hair. For a moment Hikari thought she'd go over and apologize to him, for everything. He looked up at her with sad eyes, but the small smile said more than hours of apologizing would redeem. She'd say it anyway when he didn't have Miyako clung to his body, but for now she knew. They were okay.

Takeru stood up, his hand inches from Hikari's. She twitched, almost about to grab it but restrained as he began to speak for everyone. "So, is that our miracle? Is that part of the prophecy?"

There was a confused, considering whisper sent around the crowd. "It doesn't really have a link to destiny." Amunet said, her voice unsure.

Mimi let out a whimper. "I just want to go home."

Sora clutched the smaller girl's shoulder and whispered something that Hikari didn't catch, but then raised her voice for everyone to hear. "We should come up with a plan."

Taichi smiled and pointed back at the redhead girl. "Agreed. Good thinking."

"Alright, Zorro," Yamato rolled his eyes and nudged Taichi's sword. "And how do we go about that? Everyone thinks you guys," He motioned at Taichi and his band of pirates, "-are here to pillage the city."

Hikari let her eyes wander away from Yamato's counter-speech at Pell, whose frozen figure still lay at Taichi's feet, his own frozen legs in a battle stance with his arm outright, almost pointing at Mimi. Maybe it was because she was staring at him, but Hikari could have sworn she saw his finger twitch.

She let a breath out as Takeru spoke again. "Well, it was hope. Maybe it was just that. We needed a breather. And we got it."

Jyou cleared his throat. "Not to be Debbie Downer," Hikari could have sworn a quiet collective eye-roll happened, before Jyou continued, "But why _us_? We're not really that special."

It was time for the old man to speak up and for a moment, Sein was Gennai. A nostalgic shiver ran down Hikari's spine. "Maybe not individually. But as a collective, I'm sensing there's something there. And I know there's more to the story, and I sure hope you'll be telling me all about it. But for now, we gotta see where this is going." His eye sparkled.

Koushiro grinned and the familiar expression came back. "But look at the symbols." He stepped over a sprawled guard and pushed the throne room door open. "We're here, just as a part of this world as the actual inhabitants. Our crests are on these banners, and each one correlates to the Statues of the Six Powers that are all over Orenda."

Mimi raised her hand, as if in a classroom. "I saw Jyou's." She pointed across the room at the crest of Reliability. "It was on an island, well... not really an island... but all the way in the middle of the ocean."

Ari spoke up. "They are all over Orenda. They're said to be our protectors. Every Orendian knows this. Sun," She pointed at Taichi's crest of Courage hanging just above the throne. "Hangs above it's own statue. The throne is made by the very stone, which is why it's so important for Orendians to find the right king. "Ice is in the Orendian mountain belt, Wind sits in the grain fields," She pointed to Yamato's crest of Friendship and Sora's of Love respectively. "As you say," She motioned to Mimi, "Water is in the ocean. Earth is in the Great Forest, and Town is in the Town Square." She motioned to Mimi's and Koushiro's last.

"It's kinda like where we all were." Mimi offered, but corrected herself. "Well, not really. We weren't where our own crests were."

Koushiro nodded, collecting off Mimi's train of thought. "I was in the forest, you and Taichi were in the ocean. Sora and Jyou were in town, Yamato was in the castle."

"We went to the mountains." Yamato offered.

Koushiro nodded again, but this time Hikari spoke. "It's because you're all connected. We're all connected. We're all so different but… we're the Chosen Children. We're the Digidestined. It was silly to believe that only applied in the digital world… maybe we're chosen children somehow in every world. Well, that only applies when there's bad guys. We save innocent Digimon… or… people in this case from the bad guys."

At the mention of him, Taichi nudged Pell with his foot. "I think Curls here has an agenda."

"He would be next in line to be prince…" Yamato offered. "Kairo told me." He shrugged off the looks everyone gave him, but no one spoke as there was a shuffle from outside.

Paul Udo stumbled in looking like he had just woken up. Disorientated, he looked around the room, his face of unrecognition meeting Taichi's of anger, Sora's of irritation and Hikari's of fear.

"Your highness." He spoke the words reverently to Yamato and gave a slight bow.

Taichi snorted. "Let me kill him, it'll be target practice for when everyone else wakes up." He paused, taking in the glares he received. If anything was clear to the older Digidestined, it was that anyone other than the twelve of them appearing from their world would not be the person they believed it to be. The immediate pretenses faded as Udo's doppelganger's eyes bulged. Taichi took a step towards him, circling him like a vulture, Udo already dead. "It might not be him but, God, another broken arm would do him good."

The yelp that escaped Udo's doppelganger was almost laughable as Taichi patted him on the shoulder. He looked up, Udo standing in front of Catherine and Ari. He rolled his eyes. "This is like my worst nightmare. Or some ghost of Christmas past, present and future thing. I kissed her once." He announced as he jutted his chin towards Catherine, whose face went bright red. Sora's lips pursed as Catherine looked up to deny the accusation. "She's my shrink." He motioned towards Ari who raised her eyebrows. "And he's the reason I have to see the shrink." Paul Udo looked to the sky, utter confusion meshing with fear.

"Dude, stop being-" Yamato laughingly nudged Taichi but was interrupted by a piercing scream.

Everyone turned around to see Pell clutching Mimi, his elbow tightly around her neck and a weapon loosely in his hand.


	43. Control

Hello everyone! :) It's been awhile since I did an authors note so I thought I'd do one for this chapter, since tomorrow (today for some of you!) is August 1 and the 14th anniversary of Digimon Adventure! That's exciting... and makes me feel old haha.

Anyway, the first half of this chapter was actually one of the very first things I wrote for this fic, over two years ago... whoops! I promise that it's going to be finished because we all know there's nothing worse than a fic that ends in a horrible cliffhanger without an ending. We've all been there and since I've made lots of you wait for years for the resolution, I promise there will be one... hopefully by the end of this year :)

On that note, have a wonderful Digi-versary and I hope you enjoy this chapter! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed up til now and I truly look forward to reading any and all reviews upcoming! They are the best part of writing fanfiction... besides actually writing it haha :)

Thanks again for all your support and I look forward to hearing from you... even if it's only a couple words! :D

* * *

_**CHAPTER FORTY-TWO**_

Since so many years had passed, Mimi's memories from the Digital World weren't very strong. The days all faded together into one action packed blur. However, the things that stood out the most were the times when Palmon had digivolved. How guilty she'd felt when Lilymon had saved her family, how impressed she'd been with Togemon when they were in Toy Town.

Toy Town… aside from Togemon, the obvious detail that stood out was Monzaemon. It was a giant teddy bear, for heaven's sake! But maybe that was part of the problem, you didn't expect it to be dangerous by looking at it. That's how it was with Pell, he looked like a five-year-old boy with angelic ringlets and cute pinch-me cheeks… but the way his grip was tightening around her sides, the way she actually was scared… that was Pell's black gear. Monzaemon wasn't a bad Digimon… he had a black gear, he was being controlled! But nobody seemed to be controlling Pell. Mimi examined the back of his red admiral-like uniform, feeling like she should be looking for a black gear… or at least something with that kind of shape to hit him over the head with as he backed her into the giant throne room.

"Put her down!" Jyou battered in a tone Mimi was familiar with. It was the same voice he used when she was driving too fast or was going on about some guy he thought was an idiot. She could always read Jyou, but she would always pretend otherwise.

Pell arched his eyebrow, a challenge. Jyou wasn't stupid enough to accept that… he was Jyou, overly cautious and cynical… but reliable. He wouldn't endanger anyone.

But Jyou ran at them. Didn't he pay attention to _any_ movies? Of course that wasn't going to work, and as if it had been acknowledging Mimi's surprise, she felt something digging into her back. Cold, even through the thickness of her dress, metal and tubular.

Aside from ones attached to various digimon, Mimi had never seen a real gun. Or if she had, she hadn't been afraid. Now she was definitely afraid.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Pell mused, as if Mimi's defender was some sort of joke. Jyou slowed down, his face one of panic but determined, he was still posed to run. "That would be too easy. You should know, Doctor, if you hurt me, this goes off in her back."

Mimi gasped as Pell dug the barrel deeper into her back; she could feel it almost grinding into her spine. As if her exclamation fuelled him, Pell grinned. "Then even your fancy science medicine couldn't save her. She would fall to our feet and bleed to death, slowly and painfully. Just like your little pirate buddy." There was a shout of protest from Taichi. Willis… she had hoped he had simply escaped. Mimi could feel her hands start to shake and her eyes begin to fog over. A sob was starting to form itself in her throat. "But this time," Pell removed the gun from Mimi's back and waved it around the room. "You would all get to watch. Just like you," The gun stopped wavering around and Pell aimed it solely at Jyou, several feet ahead of the others, his face now more desperate than anything, "got to watch your friend. Jim, wasn't it?"

Mimi gasped. Jim, as in Shin's American name. Shin as in Jyou's brother… whom he had undying respect for. Mimi had gathered from the others that there had been people from their world appearing here, with no recollection of who they were on Earth. Almost like reflections, like ghosts. As Pell spoke, Mimi her it must have been Jyou's ghost. And Jyou had to watch him… the sob finally escaped and Pell returned the gun back to her spine, the force shoving another sob out of Mimi. Jyou fell to his knees and Mimi wished more than anything she could go over to him, but even if there hadn't been a weapon digging into her back, she doubted she'd be able to move.

"That's enough!" It was Taichi's turn to react, Mimi tilted her head to see him, dashing over to Jyou and helping the older boy off the floor. "I'm a pretty good shot, you know. Pell, right? I believe you have a bullet in your leg that agrees with me."

Pell sneered, that explained his limp. He was the same person Taichi fired his gun at while they were sailing away from the ship. Taichi raised his gun, a cheeky grin forming on his mouth. "Should I count to three? Or we could have a western style showdown? Or, better idea, you could let my friend go and start running."

Pell raised Mimi's body up, like a human shield. Defiantly, he called, "Never."

Taichi scoffed, "Your choice. Don't worry, Meems, turns out I'm practically Robin Hood with a gun."

He closed one eye and pointed the weapon towards them. Mimi's heart had digivolved into a huge bass drum from a marching band, time seemed to stop. Everything else stood still, but Taichi cocked his head and the corner of his mouth lifted up and-

"Don't! You can't!"

The girl who had been standing noticeably close to Koushiro shouted at Taichi, her arm extended as a warning. Everyone turned to face Amunet as she explained, "The tapestries are the centers of all Orenda's magic. All the prophecies, everything... Everything would be destroyed without them. This darkness would be permanent, the light," she motioned towards the giant chandelier "would be gone as there'd be no hope. And we'd get no miracle."

Her voice cracked as it was clear she was trying to be as calm and informative as possible but for what was probably the first time, the girl who had studied all the myths and legends and prophecies found herself in the middle of one.

Taichi's face twitched but it didn't appear to have shaken his confidence. At least Mimi hoped not to Pell. She felt his chest expand behind her as he let out a sickly laugh. "So then, Captain... How good of a shot are you?" As the taunt left his lips Mimi could feel his palms get sweaty even though they were cold on her as he pushed Mimi right to the back of the room, directly in front of the green tapestry with the crest of Sincerity emblazoned on the front.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mimi noticed that back out in the foyer, other soldiers were stirring. Some rose, groggily as if from a long sleep while others jumped up as if they had been only pretended the whole time. One, an older man with more decoration on his uniform than the rest, barged into the throne room in an outrage.

"PELL!? What is the meaning of this?!" His voice boomed as he motioned around the room until his outstretched palms came to the direction of Pell himself, still clutching Mimi.

Pell chuckled and the movement of his chest sent disgusted shivers through Mimi. "For years," Pell began, but something was caught in his throat so he cleared it and began again. "For years and years I've watched every incompetent fool come up here and sit in this throne." He extended his arm behind him while still keeping Mimi's neck clamped in his elbow. "Kairo, what do you think? Legends about the thrown rejecting unfit princes? Or my own handiwork?"

He let the question linger for a moment before the older man hollered an unintelligable string of words. All Mimi could pick out near the end when Kairo's breath was heavy were: "We will stop you!"

Yamato clearly heard these words too. He stepped up to the man whom he was evidently familiar with and rested a hand on Kairo's shoulder. "I think that's my job. Our job."

"YOU FOOLS!" Pell screamed and the resulting ringing in Mimi's ear lingered long after the words left Pell's mouth.

The soldiers that had been slowly filtering back into the throne room were suddenly all erect and lunging forward. Kairo raced up to Pell, not relenting his grip as he argued with the man. Curse words flew at each other until Kairo looked at the younger soldier, exasperated. "You... you were against me this whole time."

There was no sympathy in Pell's voice, but the anger lessened. "I deserve this. Your men want more power. I promised it to them as soon as that crown sits on my head. All they have to do is plunge a sword or a bullet into his pretty blonde head and the throne is mine. Look at your chances, Kairo. I have a hundred trained, professional soldiers... it looks like you have ten imposters, a handful of scientists and some pirates. Let's save the trouble and-"

Tired of listening to him speak, Mimi arched her knee forward and kicked backwards into Pell's wounded leg. The feral scream that broke from his mouth froze Mimi's spine and Kairo staggered back in alarm. His grip only tightened around Mimi through his pain as he lifted the gun and pushed it into her head with force that Mimi knew she'd still feel tomorrow. If she made it to then.

As if answering her silent prayer, a bullet –unseen until it plunged directly into Pell's knuckle- sent him howling again, this time tossing both Mimi and the gun away from him as he clutched his hand, now gushing with blood.

Mimi panted as she clutched her hair and rested her head on the cool floor before turning over to see who had shot the saving bullet. Paul Udo stood, shaking and drenched in sweat, still holding the pistol in his hand. As if his act of heroism inspired some of her own to transpire, Mimi rolled over to grab the gun that only moments ago had been burrowing into her skull.

Taichi saw his window of opportunity as he sprinted towards the front of the room where Mimi was still clutching the gun beside the throne, but instead of going directly towards Pell he ran to the opposite side of the throne and jumped, grabbing the tapestry emblazoned with the very same crest in which he was demonstrating his ownership over as he swung around, kicking the sobbing Pell off the throne stage and rappelled down into the throne, a pleased smirk growing on his face as he landed squarely, picturesquely with one leg folded on top of the other.

With Pell a safe distance away, Mimi rose steadily, still clutching the gun as if it was a bomb about to explode at any second. Before a single word formed in her head, she watched Jyou dash towards her and fold his lanky and battered arms around her, not so much in affection but a as protective shield.

Taichi's smirk faded, to a look of confusion. Gasps and confused words spread through the room with the brilliant light emanating from the crystals making the jewel encrusted Courage symbol on the back of the throne. Instinctively Mimi turned to Amunet for some kind of explanation, but the normally well composed girl had both hands covering her dropped jaw, tears streaming from her eyes. Mimi shielded her own view of the brilliant light as the tapestry hung above the throne suddenly expanded to release a burst of dust, glittering from the very threads woven into the ancient fabric. Another glance to Amunet showed Mimi that a soldier decided to take this opportunity of distraction to rush towards the throne. Koushiro was the first to notice as he, in all his unathletic glory rushed towards the stout soldier, grabbing his legs with his own outstretched arms and pulling the soldier down. The soldier, maybe to steady himself or perhaps out of shock grabbed the nearest fixture of the room which tore from the ceiling as the purple tapestry with the crest of Knowledge fell like a blanket on top of Koushiro, still clutching the soldiers legs. Jyou, while giving Mimi a quick reassuring squeeze dashed to his friends aid, tripping in an eternally Jyou fashion on what more than the tapestry with his very own crest of Reliability.

Jyou landed on top of Koushiro's already started dogpile, with the grey tapestry floating down and landing on top of them all. Mimi looked around the room, waiting for some reaction but as the beam of light still was blasting behind Taichi on the throne, everyone watched as a second and third beam of light, a dusty gray and a rich violet burst from the fallen Digidestined's tapestries. This light however, faded almost instantly with the crests of Knowledge and Reliability flashing behind them, framed by the window in the midnight sky... a display of magical fireworks that none had seen before. When all but Taichi's throne, putting the chandelier to shame, faded to black, the tapestries began to move as one at a time Jyou and Koushiro rose, no longer clad in their Orendian attire but Camelot-esque suits of armor in silver and violet respectively. Both held a confused and bewildered look on their faces as they pulled the others tapestries off the floor to reveal an extremely flustered Iori sitting on top of an even more disconcerted soldier.


End file.
